Heroes And Ghosts
by CloudyDream
Summary: Lyanna Stark didn't leave with Rhaegar willingly; but now, with all the Targaryens dead, she's perfectly willing to be Queen. Lyanna/Rhaegar, Lyanna/Oberyn.
1. The Maid

**Heroes and Ghosts**

* * *

**Author's note: **the story was written for the kinkmeme, prompt in the summary above. As I said, there's some _serious_ angst coming up in the next chapters, so you might want to consider that before you start reading. Also, I listened to _The Great Gig In The Sky_ and A Fine Frenzy's _Almost Lover_ obsessively while writing this, you might want to check it out.

* * *

** – the maid in the castle – **

_Silvia, do you remember then  
that time of your life  
when beauty glistened  
in your laughing and darting eyes…_

Lyanna had been barely four years old when her mother had died, old enough that all she could remember were simple glimpses. She could, if she so wished, close her eyes and remember an impression of warm eyes and a soft voice, the way the light played on her pale skin; but she had been only a child, and not particularly inclined to wallow in memories, not when there were games to be played and brothers to follow around.

In the end, Lyanna Stark had never given her departed lady mother much thought, never wondered how much different her life would have been; she went out and played with swords instead, lived a boy's life and dreamt boy's dreams, and she was quite content with what she had.

And so Lyanna had grown up in Winterfell amidst her horses and her roses, with no other women for company. She was alone at times, but never truly lonely; much loved by her father and brothers and all of his men, and everyone who ever laid eyes on her. They all liked to tell her how _wild_ she was, but Lyanna never thought so herself – she was no different from her brother Brandon, after all, and hers was only the impetuousness of youth. _I'll grow out of it_, she promised Ned once, but she never really did, only a girl still when the war started; and by the time it was over she was a woman and a mother and a survivor, and not so eager to grow up anymore.

She'd been a lively child, Lyanna, spoiled beyond belief; by Lord Rickard and every man in the North who wanted to court his favor. She had a room full of beautiful gown she wore once and discarded for trousers, and a young filly she had not even bothered to name, preferring one Brandon's mounts instead. She dreamt a lot, perhaps more so than it was healthy; of mountains and valleys and the sea beyond it all, of all the adventures the world had to offer, and she knew one day they would be _hers_.

Lyanna even confessed as much to Brandon once. It was one cold Spring morning during one of Ned's rare visits, when her oldest brother had decided it was time to introduce Benjen to the delights of Dornish red, and she had promptly followed him. They had all ended up drunk beyond their wits, shouting and exchanging tales, about Catelyn Tully and Ned's life in the Vale, and somewhere during all this Brandon had begun a game of Confessions. It had been the most fun she'd had in a while, Lyanna decided after, until it had been her turn to talk.

_What do you want from life_, Brandon asked, and how could she explain it? Lyanna wanted, she _craved, _so much; so many things that she didn't quite know which one she preferred. She had the sort of entitlement that came from stubbornness more than blood and privilege to back it off; and whenever she imagined her future it was always hazy and vague but on-so-bright, and she had been sure it would be wonderful.

It just simply couldn't have been otherwise.

And yet that day, that spring day with the Dornish wine and the drunken laughter; that day was the first time Lyanna Stark had her hopes and dreams clash with the knowledge that her life had been mapped from birth, and there was nothing to be done about it. She would be thirteen in less than a fortnight, after all, a woman grown; and Father had told her already of Lord Manderly and Lord Bolton and Ned's friend Robert Baratheon, handsome Lord Robert with the blue eyes. _He's already halfway in love with you, Lya_, Ned had said, and she'd smiled at him but her mouth had felt sour. _No one ever asked me,_ told the mirror in her room, because she couldn't tell Father, with all the anger a thirteen-year-old girl could muster.

Lyanna had never quite learnt how to make the best of her situation until it was far too late.

No one ever asked Lyanna Stark whether she wanted to marry handsome Lord Robert, because it did not matter; and she had never seen a man quite as dashing as Rhaegar Targaryen until that night at Harrenhall. But Rhaegar never asked Lyanna whether she wanted him, either, because prophecies shouldn't depend on the will of Man; and the kingdom bleed. After that, no one asked Lyanna Stark whether she wanted to be queen, but by then the war had be over and there was nothing she could do.

Truly, Lyanna had never wanted to be queen; but in the end she never really minded.  
After a while, she quite enjoyed it.

Ned left again and come back a year or so later, with Robert Baratheon in tow. She was four-and-ten at the time, and laughed in his face when he gave her a gracious bow and compared her eyes to the stars.

"Why, thank you, my Lord," she told him. "It's not something I hear often."

"Men aren't as courteous in the North," she added; and Brandon barely suppressed a snort at that. Lyanna kept chuckling every time she looked at Robert for the rest of the day after that, ignoring every single one of Ned's glares.

Ned, for his part, seemed every bit as content with the match as Robert was. "You will be good for each other," he said on that first day. "He hates sitting as much as you do, you know; is the only man I know who could keep up with your follies. And he's taken quite a shine to you."

That he had, it was plain to see. Robert's eyes hadn't left Lyanna since the moment they'd been introduced to each other, to Ned's satisfaction and Brandon's quiet anger.

"We'll see how many more women he'll take a shine to when we go South," Lyanna told him then, and Ned exhaled slowly. He knew Robert's shortcomings better than anyone else; but then again, his foster brother was not much different from Brandon in that regard, and Lyanna was blind when it came to Brandon's own faults.

Still, they managed quite well until it was time to leave for Harrenhall a fortnight later. Lord Rickard requested Lyanna to be the one to show Robert around Winterfell; and she did, taking him to the crypts and the Winter Town and outside the walls for long rides.

Brandon scowled when he heard about that, but Lyanna stopped him before he could object. "Do not worry, dear brother," she said. "Robert's would never think to try anything _indecent_ with me, is that right?"

And Robert nodded at that, almost flushing even. "Of course I wouldn't," he said; and it was plain that he meant it even, as if Lyanna were some delicate creature to be cherished and protected, and he gave her a look that was pure devotion.

Ned saw the look that passed between the two and smiled to himself, thinking that perhaps they were as good of a match as he'd told Lyanna they would be, that perhaps Robert could love and respect his sister as much as Ned knew he wanted to. Lyanna saw the look as well, so unlike any other she'd ever received before, and it was enough to make her blush like a little girl – until the day, shortly after, when that devotion turned to love, and she wondered how was it possible to love someone without really knowing them.

"You cannot," Brandon told her, bluntly, when she asked. Her beloved Brandon, Lyanna's favorite brother by far, who made her laugh and taught her to hold a sword and always told her the truth, even when it hurt.

"Robert's crazy with love for the woman he thinks you are," he continued, even though Lyanna had not asked; and she glared at him and told him to stop, but it was too late and the damage was done.

_I wish he could love me for myself_, she almost said; but it wasn't what she wanted, not really.

"I wish I could love him, too" she said instead, with all the stubborn conviction of a young girl who's been told that love could solve anything.

It didn't, Lyanna learnt later on; but it was a nice thing to have.

On the last day before their departure, she showed Robert the glass gardens.

"I wager you don't have blue roses in the South," she told him, tasting the way the words felt on her tongue. _You_, she'd said, _South_, and wondered for how much longer she would remain a Stark of the North.

"They are my favorite," she added, and Robert smiled.

"I can see that," he said, and made to pick one. "They're beautiful."

Robert held his rose between thumb and index finger, tightly, mindful of the thorns. Lyanna looked at his hands and wondered how they would feel on her body, if they would be as strong and rough and playful as the rest of him.

He put the rose in the pocket of his cloak, still careful, meeting her eyes and smiling at her. "I'll keep this one," Robert said. "Bring it home with me."

_It will wilt and die before we reach the Neck, _Lyanna thought, but Robert fancied himself a poet and they both knew it was not the rose he was talking about; and Lyanna Stark had no intention to die.

**– the mystery knight –**

_you can fall for pretty strangers  
and the promises that they hold_

In Harrenhall she saw Rhaegar for the first time; Crown Prince Rhaegar who was every bit as charming as she'd been told, almost too beautiful to be real, and sang of doomed lovers and long-dead kings with such passion that made her cry._  
_

Benjen teased her about it, afterwards; because crying over sad stories was not something Lyanna Stark did.

But Lyanna was almost fifteen, a maid in her prime, and she was going to enjoy the moment for as long as she could. She preferred not to remember her impending wedding if, whenever that would be; but still the thought was there, beyond her every action. Lyanna wanted to experience life, she had decided at some time during their journey, and if that included playing court lady and fancying herself in love with a prince like everyone else was doing; then she would.

_Just to try it_, she told herself. _Nothing more._

Her resolution lasted all of four days; until the time she saw the three squires from that morning again, and found someone to paint a weirwood tree on an old shield. She went to Benjen then, asking for help in something Lyanna Stark _would_ do; and the day after _that_ was without a doubt the best of her life.

She was scared, of course, of losing and being discovered, of humiliation and Father's disapproval; but she was a Stark of Winterfell, and brave as a wolf. The knights went down rather easily in the end, half-trained and nowhere as capable as she was on a saddle, and Lyanna's voice did not tremble once when she had to speak. _Teach your squires respect_, she said, keeping her tone as grave as she could, speaking through her helm with a voice that was nothing like her real one. Benjen came to her right after the joust, amazement in his eyes, and hugged her tight.

"I can't believe you _did_ it," he said, every bit as euphoric as Lyanna herself felt, and she smiled wide at him.

"I do keep saying Father not to underestimate me, do I?" But she was grinning like a fool and so was him, blood still pumping so fast she could hear the rush in her ears.

"Ben, I think I'm hungry," Lyanna continued; and this time he broke into a heartfelt laugh.

They were all talking about the mysterious knight that night, young Dom Bolton and Garth Hightower and his brother Baelor. Brandon winked at her, because of course he would; and pointed her to the corner where Robert was busy declaring to whoever would listen to him that he would unmask the knight first thing the next morning. _Good luck with that_, she thought, laughing to herself, and not even a glimpse of the folly in King Aerys's eyes was enough to curb her good spirits.

That night, Lyanna Stark slept the rewarding sleep of the just; or she would have, had she not been too excited to simply lay down.

She went out for a walk instead, away from the tents and pavilions and from the shadow of the castle. She did that often, sneaking off as she often did, no matter that Father always told her how dangerous it was, and he always laughed whenever she showed him the knife she carried. He probably did not believe she would ever use it, and Lyanna never told him of the young knight from the Crownlands she had stabbed once, when she'd been twelve and he very drunk. _To each their secrets_.

"What are you doing wandering alone at night dark, Lady Lyanna?"

She startled at that, one had to her belt, turning towards the amused voice.

"Your Grace," she said, surprised; because of course it would be Prince Rhaegar. It was a very princeling thing to do, she told herself, walking alone at night, quite romantic – it went nicely with the soft singing voice and charming manners…

Lyanna curtsied, putting all of her efforts into it, and feeling quite satisfied with the result. _Catelyn Tully couldn't do better_, she thought, and it was only once she was done that she notice how close the prince was, and how good he looked under the light of the moon.

_Even better than Robert_, she supposed, and felt herself flush when she saw him smile. She hadn't said it out loud, had she? No, she hadn't, she was sure. It must have been something else.

"There's no need for that, my lady," Rhaegar said, sounding more charming than Robert would have, smoother even than Brandon. "His Grace is only my father."

_That was it_, then, Lyanna thought, relieved to know that she had not embarrassed herself.

"Taking a walk," she said. "What about you, my prince?"

She saw him blink, then, surprised at the question. "The same thing, I'd say," he answered after a while. "I find it more restful than sleep."

_Of course you would_, Lyanna found herself thinking, with an harshness that surprised her. She remembered Lysa Tully's mindless chatters at the feast on that first night, the comments she'd made about Princess Elia's rumored pregnancy, how dangerous and difficult it would be. _It's killing her, poor thing_, Lysa had said, but her eyes had been gleaming with interest as she delivered the news. Lyanna had never even spoken to Elia Martell and could not bring herself to mind much; but Lysa's words were coming back to her now.

_Will Robert do the same?_ She could see her future stretching clearly in front of her, a lifetime of being alone whenever she was distressed, or with child, or sick… _And Prince Rhaegar is only taking a walk_, she thought. _Robert would probably be bedding some whore_.

"Lady Lyanna?" Rhaegar's voice brought her back to reality. "Are you well?"

She took in a breath and blinked, willing herself to stay composed. "Yes," she said. _Stay calm_, she told herself. Not because it was the ladylike thing to do, as Catelyn Tully would say; but because she was a Stark of the North, _and Starks are brave_. "Yes. I was…"

"I think I'm tired," she blurted out in the end, and saw him nod.

"Of course," he said, but it was plain that he did not believe her. He moved in closer, as if worried that she might fall to the ground from one moment to another. _I am not your delicate Dornish wife, my lord_.

"Allow me to escort back to your tent," he offered then, once again the perfect knight. Lyanna laughed at that, feeling like herself once again.

"Why, my prince," she said. "That would be hardly proper, wouldn't it be?

She saw his eyes widen at her brazenness, and saw him smile, for the first time, and_ gods_ _he's beautiful_.

It suddenly occurred to Lyanna how close they were standing to each other, alone but for the trees and the grass and each other, and her eyes trailed on his smiling lips. It was almost like a secret tryst, like the kid Brandon had told her about, like one of these song; and she could hear the chants rising from the fires back in the camp, feel the gentleness of spring in the air, and she loved it all.

And she knew, with all the confidence of her fourteen years, that she would never forget this day for as long as she lived; and she never did.

Lyanna bid the Prince goodnight and went back to her own pavilion thinking, _so_ this _is what all the fuss about the South is about_. She could perfectly understand it, then, Ashara Dayne and Baelor Hightower and all the young lord and ladies of the court, how they'd danced and laughed and flirted as the _music_ played. There was a sort of splendor, she decided, so different from the grandness of the North and every bit as beautiful in its way. _Damned Ned for never telling me about it_, Lyanna thought, before realizing that Ned was Ned and most likely hadn't even noticed. She could even understand Robert better now, because who wouldn't want to live to the fullest?

_The problem is_, Lyanna decided, _that Robert wants to; but so do I_.

Her last thought, before falling asleep that night, was of how dull Catelyn Tully must be, for having preferred to stay in a cold stone room in that looming fortress rather than among the beauties of the city of tents.

Benjen was the one who woke her the next morning, with the news that King Aerys had ordered the mystery Knight of the Laughing Tree to be brought before him.

"We should probably get rid of the pieces of armor," her bother told her, and Lyanna hated the thought of missing yet another morning of jousting.

"You should go," she said to Benjen. "Father will be asking after me and so will Robert, for sure." Her betrothed much preferred the melee to jousting, and he'd been unhorsed on the second day. No doubt that he'd want Lyanna to sit next to him.

"Tell them… it's a womanly thing," she concluded, and Benjen's answering grin was half-amused and half-scandalized.

It was tedious more than hard, walking around, misplacing each one of the mismatched pieces of armor in turns. She'd worn a pair of Benjen's breeches, of course, and tied her hair up in the simple knot a serving girl might favor, but there was no one around to take notice of her even if she hadn't bothered. She would keep the helm, of course, it fitted her just right and it would not be easy to find another one. As for the shield…

"Lady Lyanna?"

_Seven hells_.

She flinched in surprise at having being caught unaware, and raised her head slowly. Sure enough it was Prince Rhaegar again, clad in his black armor, standing right in front of her. _Two times in two days_, she thought, and might have been amused at the coincidence had it been under different circumstances. As things were though…

"My Prince," she answered, as calmly and politely as she could. She did not bother curtsying; it would be pointless and, she thought, with a glance at the trousers she was wearing, _will look utterly silly_.

"May I ask how you recognized me?" Lyanna asked, remembering Brandon's words. Attack is the best defense, he was fond of saying, in life like as on the battlefield, and he never stood accused when he could ask question as a distraction instead.

She studied him as she spoke, noticing the calmness in his face. Rhaegar did not look half as angry as Benjen had told her the king had been that morning, and he'd called out her name as more than an accusation. It was almost encouraging; but she knew it would not make much of a difference in the end.

Robert would perhaps find it amusing, but the rest of the court would think it outraging, and Father…. He would be livid, Lyanna knew it, for her having attracted the king's displeasure more than anything, and he would probably have her married in a moon's time to get rid of the problem altogether. _Or perhaps he'll have me stay at Riverrun with Catelyn Tully until the wedding_, she thought, and could not decide which one would be worse.

"Well," the prince said, and she could see that he was amused. "You don't look that much different out of a dress, my lady."

_Oh_. She knew she didn't, but many people did not seem to recognize her like this – she'd passed right next to Jon Umber once dressed in a stableboy's clothes, and he hadn't even blinked.

She tried not to let her disappointment show and Rhaegar went on, rather more cheerfully. "That is a pretty shield you have," he pointed at the one still in her hand. "I wondered why no one realized it might have been you from the tree."

"It must be because I am a woman," Lyanna's voice was bitter, and it was only after a few moment that she realized what she'd said. She felt her face redden. Damn it. "Is there any way you could believe it is not mine?"

The prince merely laughed. "I am not particularly close to my cousin Robert, but he has been talking so much of his fiery northern bride that it wasn't much difficult to guess." He paused. "I told my father's men to their mystery knight is likely on the Kingsroad. They must be halfway to Darry now."

"I am not his bride yet," Lyanna began, and the realized what he'd just said._ Is he really …_ "Thank you," she told him, relieved. "I doubt I would have survived Ned's lecture if he found out."

"It was my pleasure," he said, as if he were escorting her to a ball. "I suppose you had you reason and, truth be told, it was very enjoyable to watch. How was it to you?"

"I loved it," she confessed. "I only wished I could do it again." Enjoyable, he'd said. _But his father…_ "The king didn't seem to find it so entertaining." The words were barely out of her mouth that she immediately regretted them. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Yes, you did," Rhaegar interrupted her, matter-of-factly, but he did not seem angry. "His Grace is… not well," he said, sounding regretful. "You must excuse him."

"Of course," Lyanna started to say, but he spoke up once again.

"May have your shield?" he asked, and she blinked, surprised.

"What for?"

"I told you," Rhaegar said, with a playfulness she hadn't thought he could have. "It is very distinctive. I might find it somewhere by the lake, where the knight dropped it in his impatience to flee." It made sense. She had almost decided to keep it, as a keepsake, but if Father ever saw it…

"I promise on my honor I'll keep it safe," he continued, with exaggerate solemnity, and she had to smile at that. "I'll take care of it as it were my lady's favor." Robert had begged her for a favor to wear during the melee; Lyanna had told him she'd have to think about it. _Favors are for jousting, my lord, _she'd said_, all the song say so. You'd better learn how to use a spear_.

"What," Lyanna said, laughing. "Will you tie it to your lance at the tourney today?"

"I can see how it would make it difficult to ride," Rhaegar admitted, his tone light; and Lyanna handed him the shield, only pausing slightly to brush one hand against the weirwood painted on it.

"Thank you," she repeated.

"It truly was a pleasure," he said; and she could almost believe he meant it. "Now," he continued, "can I walk you back today?"

"That would be even _more_ inappropriate," she said, dramatically, brining one hand to her chest. "The Crown Prince and a servant girl? What would the ladies _think_?"

"I'd take it as a yes," Rhaegar started to walk. "You seem to love being inappropriate."

"Quite," she followed him. "It's a northern vice I have."

"Ser Eddard is one of the least inappropriate men I have ever known."

She let out a sniff at that, figuring it was too late to bother being polite in the prince's presence. "You said it yourself," Lyanna explained. "_Ser_. He spent too long in the Vale, got himself knighted and everything. He is probably going to marry a southron woman next." She thought of Ashara Dayne, her eyes so much like Prince Rhaegar's, how witty and engaging she had been. It was a pity that Ned was such a shy maid; she would enjoy having Ashara as a good-sister.

"You are going to marry a southron as well, my lady," he said, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

"I am aware," she said, perhaps more coldly than she'd intended, but she could not help it. She was_ tired_ of it, making polite conversation with Robert at dinner and pretending to enjoy it, listening to Father making plans for the wedding, knowing that her next time back in Winterfell would be her last; and then _he_ arrived, the stupid prince, asking innocently as if _she_ didn't know that she was to be married.

It was scarcely _Rhaegar_'s fault; but he was still the man every woman in the kingdom wanted to marry, and he'd surely had more of say in his wedding than Lyanna. And even if he hadn't, he was still a man, free of taking all the mistresses he wanted, to fight in tourneys and lead men and travel to Essos if he so wished; and Lyanna could not even walk by herself without needing to hide.

"I thank you," Lyanna said, once again. "For keeping my secret, and for today; but I think you should go back to the king."

He looked about to say something – _of course he does, he's the _Crown Prince_, and you just ordered him around like a servant's son!_ – but she spoke up again before he could.

"Please," she told him, quietly; and he nodded.

"Of course," Rhaegar said. "The king must be getting impatient."

He made it to leave then, but Lyanna found herself calling out to him. "Good luck," she said; and he turned towards her. "For the tournament, this afternoon. I know you'll win."

And he did.

* * *

**– the queen of love and beauty –**

_a smile from a veil  
do you think you can tell?_

In all honesty, Lyanna had not even been watching when it happened. She thought it ironic, in hindsight, the way some tragedies are once they're over; but as Prince Rhaegar passed his wife with barely a glance, the flowery crown still in his hands, it was Benjen she'd been looking at.

Her brother had lost against the Crown Prince in the second-to-last match of the day, a good placement enough that he still got a small purse of gold and his siblings' warm compliments. Even Robert, who was never far away from both Ned and Lyanna, much to Brandon's annoyance, had come and congratulated him, and so had Lord Rickard.

Lyanna, for her part, had been beaming. "Look at you, Bran," she said, and it was a testament to her brother's good spirits that he did not even react. He usually hated being called Bran, unless Barbrey Ryswell was the one doing it. "You did _so_ much better than Ned, and he's a knightly knight and everything."

Ned, who hadn't made it to the third day, fallen to Gerold Hightower's lance at the fourth tilt, did his best to look appropriately chagrined, as his sister expected of him, though his eyes were gleaming. So were Lyanna's, and he knew what she would say next even before she did.

"And let's not even talk of my valiant betrothed, the brave Lord of Storm's End."

"You are such a child, Lya," Ned said, smiling in Robert's direction as Lyanna stuck her tongue at him, propriety be damned. "Excuse her, please, sometimes she does this."

But Robert did not seem to have taken offence – nothing Lyanna did ever seem to register with him. He would never take her seriously, she had realized weeks before; not when her every act seemed to fascinate and amuse him to no end, as if she were a pet performing clever tricks. She _hated_ it, with all her heart; and idly wondered how long after their wedding Robert would tire of her attitude and start being annoyed. _Perhaps he'll hate me then_, Lyanna thought, _but at least he'll see me for myself and not for some sort of trained monkey_.

"Well, this would not do," Brandon told Ned, but it was Robert he was truly referring to. "I cannot allow a lesser jouster to have the honor of sitting by my sister. Move over, Robert."

"Same for you, Ser Brother," he took his seat in the stands next to Lyanna, who had been sat between Benjen and Robert, and she thanked him silently with a smile. "So, Ned," Brandon asked. "Who do you think will win, the prince or Ser Arthur?"

In the end, when Rhaegar did win, it was after seven lances were broken on both sides. The eight and last tilt had been particularly exciting to watch, in Lyanna's opinion and in that of the rest of the crowd, who'd murmured impressed when both parts had missed their intended targets but still managed to land a hit, Ser Arthur hitting the prince's abdomen instead of his breastplate, and Rhaegar's spear striking on the other knight's shoulder. The prince had hit harder and Ser Arthur had lost control of his horse, with a fall that had been nothing short of impressive; and even more so the fact that he seemed completely uninjured.

Lyanna had turned to Ben then, discussing quietly what they'd just seen. It would be a while before they would leave, after all, with all the fuss of the ceremony and the confusion of thousands of people leaving the tourney ground. They were both so intent in the conversation, Benjen and she, that they did not pay attention to the newly-declared victor, until the moment the whole crowd went quiet and Brandon's elbow hit Lyanna on the arm.

"Lya," he whispered.

She turned her head just in time to see Prince Rhaegar riding past his wife, still carrying the crown of the Queen of Love and Beauty with the spear that won him the last tilt – and weren't the flowers blue? She hadn't seen many flowers that shade south of the Neck. Forget-me-not perhaps, she thought. An odd choice for a prince, but the color more than made it up for it.

It was only when her eyes fell on Oberyn Martell's irate face that she realized what exactly the prince had done. Spurned his own wife, she thought, surprised. He had not seemed the type. She wondered idly whether Rhaegar had a mistress he would crown, and what Brandon would have to say about it later. Lysa would want to gossip some more, she told herself, bored at the mere idea, and then…

And then the prince started slowing down between the whispers of the court, and he stopped right in front of Lyanna herself. _Blue roses._ The flowers were blue roses, she could see it now, close as he was; and she wondered idly if he'd had the crown made that morning or it'd all been just a coincidence; and then Rhaegar led his horse even closer and suddenly the crown was on her lap.

_I'll take care of it as it were my lady's favor_, he'd said, and Lyanna could see that Rhaegar was no sporting any favor from his lady wife today, but the shield he was still carrying, though black, was of the same size and shape as the one she'd given him that very morning. She would have laughed, had not she been the focus of everyone's attention.

Her hands felt oddly cold all of a sudden and she stood still as the prince leaned in even closer; aware of Brandon by her side. "I wish this was enough," he said, voice barely above a whisper; and then he rode away, lord and ladies all chattering loudly in his wake.

_I wish this…_ What he'd meant, she wanted to know. Was it an apology, for his father's behavior? A way to acknowledge her jousting ability? Somehow, she doubted that. A consolation prize, perhaps, because they both knew she would not do it again. That must be, she thought; and raised her gaze from the crown of roses to see everyone still staring at her – the crowd, her family, _Robert_. And most of those looks were thunderous.

_Why are they looking at me?_ she thought. Rhaegar had been the one who'd given her the crown; Lyanna hadn't asked for it. She hadn't… and then it dawned. Do they think _I bedded the Prince? Does_ Father_?_ She remembered Lysa's contempt at Ashara, when she'd seen Ned dancing with her. _That one is a Dornish harlot_. Would they all say the same of _her_ now? She kept deliberately looking forward, not daring to turn her head in fear of meeting Princess Elia's.

_This is enough, Rhaegar. More than enough._

"Lya," it was Brandon, and she was glad for the distraction. "You've gone white as milk, sweetie. I think we should leave."

"Yes," she told him. "Yes, we should."

Brandon was the one who dragged her out, holding her right hand, the other one still tight against the crown of roses. Rhaegar had the thorns removed, a gesture she appreciated, but not completely. _Thorns are the best part of a rose_, she'd told a bemused Robert back in Winterfell. _Well, the second best part, _she had amended_. They make the rose fierce. Without them, the rose's just a shrinking violet_.

Robert had laughed then; now he was exchanging words with Ned and Father, sounding outraged. _How dares he_, she heard; and then, _I know my daughter would never encourage_…Brandon tugged on her hand and she had to struggle to match his strides, leaving the others behind.

"What _the hell_," he asked, once they were alone, "was that?"

He was nowhere as irate as Robert had sounded, merely vexed. At the situation more than at Rhaegar's attention, she suspected; after all, Lyanna had heard him more than once defending Lady Barbrey's behavior to Father, and he'd openly admitted he would not mind a bride with a broken maidenhead. _A real woman has intelligence and wants, not like these delicate southron flowers_, he'd told Lord Rickard.

Thinking back to it now, Lyanna suspected that Brandon's words might have been different had he been worried about his little sister being the _real woman_ in question, but not by much. He was headstrong, her brother, almost as much as Lyanna herself, and enamored with the wild North and its ancient customs. He'd never had much regard for his father's ambitions.

"We had a talk this morning," she explained. "When, you know…"

Brandon smiled at that. "I know. Womanly things, I believed you said."

"Exactly," Lyanna smiled. Brandon always managed to make her smile, no matter what. "He was very kind. I suppose it was his way to apologize… for his father, perhaps." She did not tell Brandon what she'd confessed to Rhaegar, _I wish I could do it again._ He wouldn't understand.

"It was nothing more than that," she said. "And I know everyone will gossip now, and your future wife is probably thinking that your sister is a harlot, what with that horrible little spiteful sister of hers whispering things all the time."

Brandon let out a bark of laugh at that but did not object, which worsened Lyanna's humor even more. "They'll all think I encouraged his attentions, or that _Father_ told me to." _Father_. She had forgotten to worry about Lord Rickard's reaction. _He'll send me to stay with Lord Tully til Brandon's wedded and bedded_.

He did not, in the end, but there was quite some screaming involved in his decision. Lord Rickard told his daughter that Robert had been furious at Rhaegar and offered to have the wedding before they were to head back North but, before the horrified look could completely settle on Lyanna's face, he continued explaining how he'd told Robert that he would not give away his daughter until his heir was married and well settled with his new bride in Winterfell.

"Thank you, Father," Lyanna said, and Rickard's eyes softened.

"I only want the best for you Lya," he told her; and she knew he meant it. "But this defiance will do you no favors in the end. You'd better get used to the idea of marrying Robert, child."

He'd said the same thing many times, and many times she'd answered that not, she didn't have to marry _Robert_. She could marry a Northern lord, or not marry at all. She'd even offered to marry one of Rickard's men, if that meant she could still live in Winterfell, and he'd laughed, thinking it a joke. Lyanna had only even brought up Maege Mormont and her bear once; Brandon had laughed at that, and Father had glared daggers.

"Lord Hoster approached me to let me know that Lady Catelyn offered you to stay in Riverrun once we leave," he seemed amused at that, thankfully. "Her septa would tutor you in the way of the South, I believe these were her words."

Next to Lyanna, Brandon scoffed. "She's as devout as she is beautiful, the Lady Catelyn," he said. "I should ask her what she'll make of our godswood in Winterfell."

"I told him not to worry," Father continued, stern. "That you will stop with Lord Manderly in White Harbor on our way North, all to better prepare for your brother's wedding."

_White Harbor_. A good enough compromise, she supposed, between North and South; and quite a good enough place to be living in. There was much freedom in living in such a city, and she had always liked the Manderlys.

She nodded. "Can Benjen come, as well?"

"Do not tempt my patience, Lya," Father said, but he knew as well as she did that she simply _had_ to. "And I think you should go settle things with Lord Robert now."

_Of course you think I should_. Robert, it turned out, was in his own pavilion, and so was Ned. She made her way through the tents well aware of the stares she was still receiving, and fastened her cloak tighter, feeling the soft weight of Rhaegar's crown in the small hidden pocket. Father would have ordered her to throw it away, Lyanna knew; but it was a nice reminder to have. _Queen of Love and Beauty_, she thought. It had a nice ring to it, despite everything.

Robert was still angered at the Prince, as she'd expected, but Ned's presence helped her to calm him down. Her brother agreed with her that there was nothing more to be read in the gesture.

"He was trying to be gallant," Lyanna said. "There's no harm in that."

She saw a familiar gleam in Robert's eyes and cut him off before he could talk. "And if you are about to tell me that no other man is allowed to be gallant, my lord, my brothers would beg to differ. And every single one of my father's bannermen."

Robert laughed at that and Ned excused himself, ignoring Lyanna's pleading looks. She remained with Robert for another hour at least, listening as he talked about life in the Vale, telling stories that were every bit like the ones she'd heard from Ned, except for the times Robert stopped abruptly, looking awkward, likely to avoid mention something that involved another woman. Or many different women, perhaps.

It was entertaining to watch, to be sure, but rather repetitive after a while. Lyanna considered telling him that she did not mind – she did not, it was Robert's intentions after the wedding that concerned her, not how many women he'd bedded before; Brandon was almost as bad with women and still her favorite brother – but in the end she didn't.

Telling Robert _that_ would be, in his eyes, the same thing as giving him permission to seek the company of other women when they were married. Which he would do all the same, she knew. _But it shouldn't mean I have to encourage him_.

The sun was almost setting when she excused herself, and where the sky wasn't reddening it was a deep blue so like the color of the roses Rhaegar had given her. "I am very tired," she told Robert. "It must be all the excitement of the day."

He understood, of course. Lyanna suspected that Robert might have gotten more excited that she had over that day's events, and he did not take offence when she declined her offer to walk back with her, saying that people would talk if they saw them together – and they would, Lyanna never doubted it for a minute.

"My lady."

The speaker was handsome to the point of being beautiful, his silvery hair long enough to brush past his ears; she could almost have thought it was Rhaegar for a while, if not for the difference in her voice.

"Ser Arthur," she said, feeling the weight of his gaze on her. Appraising, judging.

"If you would follow me," he said, unsmiling. "I can promise it will not be long."

Lyanna could guess well enough where he was going and nodded, falling into step with the man. _Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Dawn_. Ned had told her tales of the man, how he'd killed the Smiling Knight not even half a year past; and now here he was, looking at her with unblinking eyes. She wondered what Ser Arthur had thought of Rhaegar's actions that day. _He is Kingsguard_, she thought, _but still a Dornishman_.

Rhaegar was waiting in the same spot where they'd talked the night before, but this time it was plain they would not have the luxury of speaking alone.

_Nor the time to have a proper conversation_, Lyanna realized, and did not bother with pleasantries. "What was all that for?" she asked. "Robert wants to kill you."

"Something else that will never happen again. And something quite inappropriate, I imagine."

"And something very public," Lyanna added, trying to understand if he were serious or… could the prince be _making a joke_? And then she remembered what she had just said. "I did not meant it like _that_," she clarified, quickly. "Robert. He's jealous, that's all."

"It's understandable," Rhaegar said, still perfectly poised and polite; and Lyanna felt a surge of annoyance. _He_ was not the one whose virtue would be discussed by all the Lysa Tullys of the Seven Kingdoms for the next half a year or so.

"Was the Princess very understandable as well, Your Grace?" she asked, and she saw his eyes widen in surprise.

Still, when he spoke, he was as composed as ever. "Once I explained to her. The Princess would have preferred to be warned, and that is my fault, but she found the story most interesting and told me to congratulate you on your riding abilities."

The message could not have been clearer. Lyanna could almost picture Prince Rhaegar telling his wife about that morning, the two of them laughing over the story of the silly northern girl who thought she could play knight. He must have given her the stupid crown as some sort of kindness for a girl, the way he probably gave dolls and kittens to his daughter to keep her happy; and she'd gone and attacked him over it.

He left before she could find the words to apologize, and this time Lyanna did not bother meeting Ser Arthur's gaze as they headed back, not really caring to find out what he might think about her anymore.

They all left Harrenhall two days later, Ned for the Vale, Brandon to escort Lady Catelyn back to Riverrun before making his own way North, and Benjen with Father for Winterfell. Lyanna bid them all farewell with Ser Wylis Manderly standing by her side, waving Ben goodbye with her hand as he laughed.

That was the last she would hear of Rhaegar Targaryen for half a year, and the last time she saw her brother Brandon alive.

**– the princess in the tower –**

_and would you tear my castle down  
stone by stone  
'til there's nothing left, but a battered rose  
_

She had been the one to send the first letter.

It was one morning some five months after her arrival to White Harbor, and Lyanna was as bored as she could remember ever feeling in her life. The city was as lively as she remembered, a far cry from the austere grandness of Winterfell, but it had not taken her long to come to know every alley like the back of her own hand. Lord Manderly had been every bit as welcoming as she remembered, but he was far too busy with his duties for Lyanna to disturb him; and so were his sons, Wendell with his squiring and Ser Wylis with his young wife and newborn daughter.

Lyanna had all the freedom she could ever want as long as she went back to the New Castle every night, but Brandon's wedding would not be before another few months at least; and then she would only have a year or so before her own, time she would have gladly spent at Winterfell.

_And here I am_, she thought, _wasting away_.

She never could remember what exactly was that made her put the quill to paper, or what exactly she'd written that first time; except that it had started as an apology of sort for her parting words at Harrenhall and ended up as the same sort of letter she used to write Ben, accounts of her life in White Harbor and more questions than it would have been considered proper to ask.

Lyanna had always loved writing; much simpler and easy than making polite conversation in her father's halls. There was no need for flowery words and empty courtesies, and all the time in the world to decide what she wanted to say, and how. She closed the letter asking if he still had the shield he'd taken from her at the tourney. _I am quite fond of keepsakes_, Lyanna wrote him, trying not to think of the crown of roses she still kept. _Do you suppose you might give it back to me at my brother's wedding?_ That would have made for an interesting day, for sure.

She surprised herself by giving it to Lord Manderly's maester, to send it whenever he could spare a raven for King's Landing; and Rhaegar surprised her even more by replying in only a few days. _Lady Lyanna_, he answered, _it is very good to hear from you_; and went on in a similar tone as hers had, mundane observations that should have been, by all accounts, boring; and still they weren't.

Lyanna wrote back the following day.

The weeks after were among her sweetest memories, despite everything that happened after. Most days were nothing especially exciting, not after the novelty of living in a new place had worn off; but every week or so she would receive a message from King's Landing and read it, sending back an answer as soon as she could, as fast as the ravens flied.

The fourth one she received, about a month after her first, was addressed _Dear Lady Lyanna_. She would have responded in kind, Lyanna informed him, had it not sounded silly. She wrote her next letter to _Rhaegar_, and every time since then; keeping all the ones she received to herself. They would be a great comfort in the years to come, even though that she hadn't know it at the time, a reminder of simpler times when it had all seemed just a game.

It was still a game to Lyanna when the prince wrote her of something important he needed to tell her, some proposition or another, piquing her curiosity; and still a game when she agreed on a place and time for a meeting, half-expecting some knight or squire with a message from Rhaegar.

Sometimes she thought it odd, for the Crown Prince to be paying her so much attention; but these thoughts never truly went anywhere. Still, when Lyanna approached the Seal Rock that morning, only to see him waiting there, she almost thought him some vision.

"Rhaegar," she said, because she could not bring herself to address as _Your Grace_ a man who had shared his childhood memories with her. Her voice sounded weak, Lyanna noticed, but it couldn't have been otherwise, not when she was so surprised.

He gave her a nod. "Lyanna."

He sounded perfectly calm and composed, which she thought was terribly unfair.

Rhaegar was in the North for personal matters, or so he told her, explaining that he hadn't wanted to make his presence known because it would only take time. It was his fist time north of the Neck, he admitted after a while, and Lyanna took a look to the heavy fur-lined cloak he was wearing and laughed. It clashed horribly with the rest of him, and she asked if he had bought it off some passing peasant.

He frowned, like most men did when she laughed at them. "Not quite."

"Did Ser Arthur…" Lyanna began, still smiling, before realizing something. "Where's the Kingsguard?" she found herself asking, curious. At Harrenhall she had heard the Lady Ashara telling Ned of her brother's visit to Summerhall, explaining that Rhaegar liked to travel with small parties more often than not, but there was always a knight of the Kingsguard with him.

"Ser Oswell," he corrected her. "Is currently visiting the city. Arthur is still on board the ship." Rhaegar paused to look at her. "I figured you might have preferred for this to be private."

It was Lyanna's turn to frown, confused. "What _is_ this?"

And so he told her.

Rhaegar's story was unlike anything Lyanna had ever heard before, and a great deal better than any song. He talked of his father's grandfather, King Aegon, of the witch of Oldstones and a Valyrian prophecy. He told her of Summerhall, where he had been born; and that was the saddest part of all. Rhaegar looked so _convinced_ as he spoke, so utterly sure of his words; and Lyanna found herself believing him.

After all, why shouldn't she? She was of the North, and had heard the whispers of the heart tree whenever she prayed in the godswood at Winterfell; knew of the skinchangers and wargs and giants living beyond the Wall, and why couldn't dragons come back if the Children of the Forest still lived in the Island of Faces? Rhaegar's prophecy spoke of dragons and a flaming sword, and the long nights that never ends; and she knew enough of winter to wish for fire.

"This is a beautiful story," Lyanna said when he was finished. "Does the rest of your family believe in it, as well?"

"My father," he answered, but he was grimacing. Lyanna had heard enough stories of Aerys's temper to guess why. "He married my mother because of it. But my brother is too young, and Elia merely humors me, I think."

He said it so matter-of-factly, as it there was nothing to be done about it. _And perhaps there isn't_, Lyanna thought, remembering how angered she felt whenever Robert did the same to her, letting her talk without listening, watching but not seeing, loving without knowing why. _Elia merely humors me_, the prince had said, and Lyanna herself could not have put it any better. _Oh, how I know the way of that_. And yet, what could she do? Asking Robert to change for her sake, when she herself had no intention of doing the same?

_To love is to sacrifice_, someone had told her once, but Lyanna did not love. She found herself wondering if Rhaegar did; whether he had ever sacrificed anything for his lady's sake. _But why should he? He's a prince, and a man, and the world shapes to his will_. Rhaegar must be terribly selfish, she decided, as gentle-hearted as he was. But then again, Brandon said the same about her.

_And I am, am I?_

They stood silent for a while, side by side, watching the gulls fly above the sea, and Lyanna could see Rhaegar shifting.

"It is cold, this North of yours," he admitted when she turned her head to look at him. "And to think the maesters claim winter is almost over."

Father had said as much in his last letter. "It is," Lyanna said. "And I could entertain you all day long with tales of Winterfell, but you must have something else to say."

He did not say a thing, merely looked at her, his lilac gaze so intense she felt as if he were reading her very soul. "You have," she continued. "Do you?" It did not make sense for the prince to bother visiting her only to talk about his family history, personal matters or not.

"Tell me," she asked, wanting to know; and he did.

By the end, Lyanna was laughing again, and this time the sound was bitter.

"Of course," she said, once she had regained her composure. Rhaegar was still looking at her, perfectly still, as if he were a marble statue. He reminded Lyanna of the image of the Warrior she'd seen in the Manderly's sept, and she almost laughed once again.

"Did you know," Lyanna told him, with an air of casualness she did not felt. "Of all the men who tried to get me into bed, no one ever thought up such a beautiful tale, my Prince." Willam Dustin had feasted her father and Robert Baratheon had enchanted her brother, but they both had wanted her for more than her name. _Willam thinks be beautiful and Robert sees Ned in me_, she thought, but to Rhaegar only my blood matters.

And to say that she had found him to be so different from the others._ Only yet another Lord obsessed with the future of his House, and one who cannot even offer to marry me._

"It's not a tale," he began; but she would not let him talk.

"I quite believe you," Lyanna said and, gods be good, she did. _When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers_, he had said; and she had dreamed of it once, a red sky and the voices of the dead Kings Of Winter rising from the crypts. Rhaegar had written her that he'd seen a red comet above King's Landing once, and she now she understood what he'd seen in it. "I believe your prophecy, but I am not a broodmare nor a mistress, Your Grace."

"You are right," he blurted, and it was the most flustered Lyanna had ever seen him. "You aren't."

Lyanna tried to keep her surprise from showing on her face, and failed. "You are much more than that, Lyanna, I see it now. You are beautiful and full of life, and any man would be lucky to have you. You deserve to have the life you want." He paused, then added. "And I can give it to you."

_I should go_, Lyanna found herself thinking; but she already knew she would not. "What do you mean?"

"I know you do not wish to marry," he said, and she felt her lips twist in a wry smile. "Come with me, and you will not have to. I'll see that you have the life you've always wanted, anything you could ever need –"

"– once I've borne you your child, you mean?"

"– once I am king," he continued, as if she hadn't even spoken, and Lyanna laughed again. _Once I'm Lord of Winterfell, sister, I'll give you your own keep so you won't have to leave us,_ Brandon had promised her when she had been seven.

"Any child I might have will be past my age by the time that happens." Daughter, Rhaegar had said. He had been firm it would be a daughter. _Rhaenys, Aegon and Visenya_.

"His Grace is very ill," he said; and she thought, _that is a way to say it_.

"You must know that; Lord Stark does. He will no longer sit the Iron Throne by the time Summer comes." _You speak of treason_, Lyanna thought. Lord Stark. Did her father know of this? _Do they plan on killing him, or simply to put Rhaegar on the throne?_ The king was very mad, the whole of Westeros agreed. _Like Aerion Brightflame_, they said.

"It doesn't matter," Lyanna said, shaking her head. "I don't want to marry Robert but…" _You have a duty to your family, Lya, a duty to the North_, Father had told her once. "I cannot do this to my family."

He looked… Lyanna couldn't say. Disappointed, perhaps, or even sad. "I think I should go back," Lyanna said, making for her horse. "I will see you at Brandon's wedding, if you will be there."

"My son was born a month ago," Rhaegar called out as she left, and Lyanna turned, surprised. She knew that, of course, even had Rhaegar not written her about it. Ravens had flown across all of Westeros and the bells had ringed for young Prince Aegon from Dorne to the Wall.

"The maesters thought the Princess would die," he continued. "And she certainly will if she ever has another child."

_And this is why you came for me_, Lyanna realized. He had called it the song of ice and fire, but the truth of things was that he lacked smoke and salt. She was somewhat relieved to know that he hadn't wanted to spite his wife, only thinking of Lyanna as a last resort; but still no woman likes to think of herself as a second choice, and Lyanna was not different in that regard.

_Just like other women will be Robert's second choices once we marry_, she thought, and she could not bear to have another woman go through all that for her own sake.

"I suppose you must decide what you value most, then," she told Rhaegar. "Your wife's life or your heads of the dragon."

_And what a hard decision to make_, she realized as she rode back, remembering what Rhaegar had told her about his family's history of marriages being interwoven with this prophecy of his. The whole realm knew Queen Rhaella had no love for her brother, and yet she had married him because she had been told she was fated to do so. _Her Grace is more of a broodmare than I'll ever be_, Lyanna thought, and realized that she might just have condemned Elia Martell to death to spare her – and the Starks' – honor. _If the Princess is anything like they say, she will kill herself trying to do her duty_.

Her mouth tasted like ashes.

Brandon was to be married in Riverrun, that Lyanna had known for years; but she had not counted on Lord Rickard not attending. Benjen told her he hadn't been feeling well, but Lyanna found herself doubting it – perhaps it had something to do with his plotting, whatever the end was. _Maybe he's afraid he will catch Aerys's attention_.

Still, it was only Benjen who joined her at White Harbor, along with some of their household knights, and some of Brandon's closest friends. Willam Dustin was there as well, she noticed, but he did not look in her direction once, and Benjen informed that he was to marry the Lady Barbrey in a few moons' turn. _The poor, poor boy_, she thought. Lyanna herself would have admired Barbrey Dustin's spirit and independence, had she been infatuated with Brandon for reasons other than Winterfell. _And she will never be content with only being Lady Dustin_.

Lyanna wondered whether she should talk about the situation with Catelyn Tully once in Riverrun, if only to tell her the truth before any rumor reached her ears, but she had exchanged words perhaps twice or three times with the other woman, and she probably would not believe her. _She will think me some silly girl jealous of her brother's new wife, and she has no reasons to like me_. Lady Catelyn probably pitied Lyanna, thinking her some poor northern savage grown up with nether mother nor septa to learn manners from, as she had made it clear more than once at Harrenhall. _Let the North set her straight_.

They were to depart by ship on the morrow, Ben and his party and Lyanna along with Ser Wylis; and Lord Manderly had decided to feast the men from Winterfell with a banquet that had Lyanna's mouth watering. They had toasted to their host and to Lord Rickard's health, and then to Brandon's marriage as well. _And to our new Lady Stark_, Lord Manderly had said. _May their marriage be blessed_.

Lyanna's wine had tasted like vinegar at those words. _Lady Stark is Mother_, she had thought, no matter that she barely remembered her. _What does a Tully girl know of being the Lady of Winterfell?_ And yet she was to live there, and Lyanna to leave.

She had been dangerously close to sulking when a new guest had been announced.

"Ser Oswell Whent of the Kingsguard," the steward said; and indeed there he was, white cloak and everything. Lyanna found herself staring at him for the better part of the night after that, wondering. _Does it mean that Rhaegar is here as well?_

There had been dancing after that, as fun and lively as always, and Lyanna could not bear it. She had gone on the balcony for some air when the knight found her.

"Lady Lyanna," he called.

It was Arthur Dayne.

"Ser," she nodded at him, not surprised in the least. _Of course he would be_. There had been two Kingsguard with Rhaegar, or so he had said, once prancing around in white, the other one… _slipping inside unnoticed to talk to me?_

"Did the prince send you?" she asked, and he nodded.

"You know he has."

"We talked, as you surely know," Lyanna told him. "There's nothing more to say."

Ser Arthur stepped closer, nodding to the stone seat Lyanna was sitting on. "May I?" he asked, and she did not bother to answer. He sat.

"You are to come with me, my Lady," he told her. "Tonight."

Lyanna stared at him. "I already said I won't."

"What are you going to do, ser?" she asked him. "Carry me out at sword point? And after that, what?"

Ser Arthur stared at her, exhaling with an audible sigh. "Lady Lyanna," he began. His violet eyes were as bright as Rhaegar's, she noticed, and even sadder. _He could pass for a Targaryen_. His hair was more golden than silverly but apart from that…

"We all must do our duty," he said.

"I am," Lyanna told him. "To my family." _Your Prince might come first to you, ser, but he doesn't to me_. "As Rhaegar should do to his."

Arthur laughed, a bitter laugh. "Do not talk of things you don't understand, Lady Lyanna," he said, sounding so distressed she could not take offense at his words. "I came to court with Princess Elia, and my own sister is her dearest friend."

"I love her as if she were my own blood," the knight continued. "As I do Rhaegar. Sometimes things aren't simple."

They were, to the Starks. To Father, and to Ned. Lyanna shook her head. "Leave me out of this, ser. You, and your prince as well."

_Terribly selfish, the both of us_, _in our own ways._

Ser Arthur closed his eyes, only to reopen them after a moment. "I did not want to do this," he said; and for a moment Lyanna was almost afraid he would truly force her at sword point.

"Your father," he said. "As well as Lord Tully, and Lord Arryn, has been plotting to depose His Grace the King."

Lyanna could only stare, incredulous. This _is what you want to force me with?_ "So has His Grace the Prince, ser. As I am sure you must be aware."

"They offered him the crown, at Harrenhall," Ser Arthur continued. "The prince said no –"

"– because he has his own plan, I wager. He told me as much –"

"– and who would His Grace believe?" he asked her, and Lyanna knew he was right. "A lord who's been making alliances all over Westeros, or his own flesh and blood?"

They were almost whispering now, furious hisses that grew steadily more vicious. Lyanna wanted to spit.

"How do you even know…" she began, before it dawned on her. The Harrenhall tourney. House Whent. Ser Oswell. "And you call yourself a knight?" Lyanna hoped her voice sounded half as furious as she felt.

"Aye," Dayne said. "Sworn to the well of the kingdom." He looked away, towards the harbor, where Rhaegar was waiting for them. "No matter how painful it might be."

She was defeated. "May I go take some things first?"

"Of course," Ser Arthur said. His voice was oddly soft, considering what he had just threatened to do. "Though not many, if you would. We can make it look as though you were forced to leave, if you want, so that Lord Stark will know who's to blame." He smiled a bitter smile. "He already dislikes House Targaryen, better to blame His Grace than you."

That was… oddly considerate of Rhaegar. _Especially considering he'll lose Father's support forever. Maybe I'll write him, explain…_ She would, Lyanna decided, once a month or so was passed. To say that she'd stricken a bargain with the prince in exchange for his silence, perhaps. _So that he won't be angry at me, she thought. And I won't have to marry Robert anymore_.

_It would not be all bad_, she tried to tell herself.

"Lyanna," he called as she left, and she looked at him. "For what is worth. I wish things were different."

She did not bother to answer.

Lyanna took a few clothes, enough to last to King's Landing, simple enough that they would not be missed. She took two of her daggers and left the others, a necklace that had been her mothers, and all of her letters, even Rhaegar's.

The stupid crown of roses she left to rot.

They slipped away from the castle while the guests were still dancing, and Lyanna let out a prayer in thanks that she did not have to confront Benjen. _And to say that I like to think I'm brave_. The ship was a small one, but very well made, and the men all spoke some dialects of High Valyrian and clearly had no idea of who exactly their passengers were. Lyanna had her own cabin, she found out, with the men sharing the other.

She found Rhaegar waiting for her.

"Lyanna," he said, standing in greeting, but she didn't want to listen.

"Please do not talk to me," she told him. "Not now."

They left White Harbor behind in the middle of the night, and Lyanna lost count of the days as she divided her time between the cabin and the deck, never exchanging words with the prince or his two companions if she could help it. Still, she had no intentions to sulk – _not more than necessary_, she'd told herself on the first day, and enjoyed the sight of the open sea too much to spend all her times closed up.

The captain was a man of an age with her father, named Lorro, a Pentoshi whose dialect was close enough to the High Valyan Lyanna had never bothered to learn properly, and they had a few short conversations as the days went by. One morning he pointed to the horizon on their left – Essos was that way, she knew it.

"Pentos is that way," he told her, and Lyanna had found herself frowning at that. She went looking for Ser Arthur; still resentful towards Ser Oswell Whent.

"Ser," she asked him. "Aren't we past King's Landing?"

He took a long pause before answering. "We are," he said. "I suggest you ask the prince if you want to know."

Lyanna did not ask; but started counting the days after that. _Dorne_, she realized eventually. _But where exactly?_ How could Rhaegar be so mad – his _wife_'s family _ruled_ Dorne. _But then again, so is Ser Arthur. Starfall, perhaps?_ They made land in a small town by a fortress that was as different from White Harbor as any place could possibly be; only to take yet another ship, smaller, to go up the river. _But which river?_

Their destination was revealed as a small turret between the mountains, old enough to look crumbling from the outside; but still more comfortable than Lyanna had ever expected. There was a maester waiting for them there, a brown-haired man who obviously knew who they were, and still wouldn't refer to the men, Rhaegar included, as _ser_.

Perhaps in case anyone of the villagers happens to be here, Lyanna realized after a few days. There was a small village a short distance from the tower, and women of all ages came and went almost every day, to cook and clean, never the same woman twice in a row. She wondered idly if Ser Arthur kept turns and almost went to ask him, until she realized she could not find him anywhere.

Neither Arthur nor Ser Oswell, as well.

"Where are them?" she asked Rhaegar. It was the first time she addressed him in days, and he sounded almost startled when she spoke.

"Gone," he told her. "They will back in a few days." _Of course_.

"What for?" Lyanna said, as defiantly as she could. "So that you may bed me in peace? That's so very _knightly_ of you."

He flinched as if she'd slapped him. "I won't –"

"– please don't say it," she interrupted him. "Please. You made it clear why you want me here and we both know I would not have come willingly. So spare me the talks of duty and the pleas of innocence, septon."

Rhaegar looked angered at that. "Had you married Robert Baratheon," he said. "He would have bedded you whether you wished or not, and called it _duty_. And he would have done so as soon as he had the possibility."

He was right, she supposed. For all that she wanted to play the victim, and would certainly have done so in front of her father, they both knew she had wanted to escape her marriage as much as he'd wanted her to come with him. _The difference is_, Lyanna thought, _that he can escape the consequences_, _and I alone could not have_. Still, the way he'd gotten her to leave stung. _And who would His Grace believe?_ Ser Arthur had asked. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, called from some one of the noblest knights of the realm. _Then again, they sing the same song about His Grace the Prince_.

_I'd wanted to leave_, Lyanna though, _but still I told him no, and he would not listen_.

"Lyanna?" he called; and there was concern his eyes when he looked at her.

"What are we going to do?"

She meant to vent more than ask a question, but wasn't surprised when he answered her anyway. "We wait," he said, and Lyanna looked at him, _really_ looked. He was as handsome as always, perfectly collected at a first glance; but she knew him better now, enough to read the worry on his face, the guilt in his eyes. And shame, she was glad to realize; but it was barely a hint, and Rhaegar looked more determined than anything else.

_A man with a purpose_, she decided. _A man who's sure he's doing the right thing, no matter what_.

She thought of Ned, honorable Ned, and wondered what he would have done in Rhaegar's place. Who comes first? _The wife, the family or the kingdom?_

"Now we wait," Lyanna agreed.

It was Brandon's death, of all things, that made her fall into bed with Rhaegar. _Only death can pay for life_, she'd read once in one of his books; and perhaps it was so.

Ser Arthur was the one who brought the news, his face darker than she had ever seen it. "Rhaegar," he addressed him the moment he arrived, not even bothering to climb down the horse, and Lyanna knew something was very, very wrong.

He seemed to think the same. "What is it?" Rhaegar asked, and Arthur's eyes darted to Lyanna.

"Can you excuse us, my Lady?"

She kept her back straight, raising her chin. "If this is about me, I want to hear."

"No." He shook his head. "You do not."

They had reached the sitting room by then, Lyanna following them as fast as she could. Ser Arthur let himself fall on a chair, grim as a corpse; and Lyanna felt a cold wave of dread wash all over her.

"Tell me," she said, pleading. "Please."

He told her then, but she could not remember exactly how, and when. She had passed away at one point, or close enough, her head spinning madly; and she had found herself steadied by a pair of arms, carried over to lay down. "No," she said, trying to move. "I have to leave."

She remembered Brandon smiling, and Father's face as it had been the last time they'd all been together, stern but loving; and Lyanna thought, _it's all my fault, I need to set it right_.

"It is not," a voice said, "Lyanna, it is not your fault. The king did it, not you."

The king. When had it been, that she'd learned of how Brandon had been strangled and Father burned? Perhaps Arthur had been the one to tell her, first thing; or maybe she'd overheard them talking later. She didn't know.

"You let me go, Rhaegar Targaryen." She wanted to leave, why wouldn't he let her leave? She had to go to Brandon. "You let me go."

He put her to bed instead, lulled her to sleep as if she were a child; and by the time she woke up and cleared her head her eyes were red and swollen with tears, and Ser Arthur had gone away again.

"Where?" she asked, trying to feign curiosity. Anything to fill the void.

"King's Landing," he told her. "To escort Lady Ashara to Starfall. It… it is not safe for her there now."

_For her_.

"This is my fault," Lyanna said after a while. "My own damned fault, for being selfish."

Rhaegar made to interrupt her then, but she would not let him. "Brandon's, for being reckless. And yours, Rhaegar, and I will never forget it for as long as I live."

She looked for his eyes but he wouldn't meet his gaze. "I understand. And if you truly want to leave, wait until you have recovered. I'll send for Arthur and –"

"What for?" Lyanna asked. "What is left for me now?"

_Nothing in the world but you, Rhaegar Targaryen, and I hate you for it._

"This is your father's fault, most of all," she continued. "I'll kill him for it, Rhaegar. I will."

_And you_, she thought. _I'll make you pay_.

She found her way into his bed later that week, because she was alone and lonely and he was there, and because she had never felt more empty in all her life. They had told her it would hurt, but it did not; there was no blood at all, only the loving gentleness one would come to expect by listening to some bard's song.

Lyanna hated it.

"I feel like I'm dead," she begged him. "Make me feel alive."

She had felt herself sob at that, not quite sure of how it had happened; and when Rhaegar's arms had wrapped around her Lyanna had held him tightly, not wanting to let go.

She had never hated him more.

Lyanna learned of the rebellion at the end of the second month. _Dark wings, dark words_, indeed.

"Couldn't you ask for a truce?" she asked Rhaegar. "They want the king dead, you want him away from the throne."

Rhaegar did not said anything but Ser Oswell let out a mirthless chuckle. "The rebels want the king dead," he said. "The queen dead, and the princes dead."

"All of them," he added the last part in a undertone, before continuing. "And Robert Baratheon on the throne."

"They want _Robert_ –"

Oswell's wry smile had only grown. "_Your brother_, Lord Eddard, wants Robert on the throne."

That night she spent the better part of a hour staring into the looking glass, trying to decide if she hated herself as much as she should.

The worst part was, she did not.

Lyanna wrote her first letter to Elia Martell before Ser Oswell left again. The Princess would have had any right to tear it to pieces and throw it into the fire, but she wrote in anyway, biting her lip as she tried to think of the best words, of something, anything that would help.

_If I were the Princess_, she thought, _which message would I like my husband's paramour to write me?_

She laughed at the hilarity of it all.

_You are such a child, Lya_, Ned had said.

In the end, she wrote the words she would have liked to read. Lyanna was sorry for the situation, she wrote Elia, wished it could have gone differently; and it was all true. Then she wrote the Princess that she had nothing to fear from her. _I only wanted to live my own life_, she said, _do not want to claim anything that is yours_.

The last part was a lie.

How could she go back to her life, when there was nothing left? Rhaegar had barged in and destroyed her life, and she would have to pick up the pieces by herself. _You are such a child, Lya. Such a naïve, silly child_.

She was nowhere close to loving Rhaegar; but he was the center of her world, and she could not bear to let him go.

Lyanna gave the letter to Ser Oswell and ignored his surprised look, feeling nauseous. That night she dreamed of Robert sitting atop Iron Throne, but it was made of skulls, not swords; and somehow she knew that the ones atop his head were skulls of children.

The maester confirmed that she was with child a fortnight later; three months after Brandon's death.

The months seemed to past faster after that, or perhaps it was only the desperation in the air. The Kingsguard came and went, Ser Arthur and Ser Oswell and a few times even Ser Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander, who had been instructed by the king to summon Rhaegar to King's Landing.

"Tell him you don't know where I am," she heard him say one night; heard Ser Gerold's angry answer.

"What do you _think_ I am doing, Rhaegar?"

The Kingsguard never called Rhaegar by his name; only Arthur did it, on occasions. There was a long pause after that, and whispers.

"...you cannot imagine how _bad_ he is–"

"We can hardly have him deposed, can we? With a rebellion going on –"

" –_ we_ can do nothing at all, Your Grace. _You_ can try, and I will have to stop you."

"if we were out _fighting_ instead of…"

Lyanna fell asleep to the sound of angry hisses; and it was two days later that Rhaegar told her about the Battle of the Bells, as the smallfolk was already calling it. The Hand of the King had been exiled, it was rumored; a close friend of Rhaegar's, and she could see he was angry about it.

About Jon Connington, and the battle; and about Ned.

"Don't call him that," she said, when Rhaegar used the word _traitor_.

There was viciousness in his voice when he answered. "Why not? Is what he is."

She couldn't believe it. "The king killed my _father and brother_," she told him, icy. "Asked for Ned's head. What _could_ he have done?"

"What he _did_. Run to the North, and stay there. My father was hardly going to Winterfell to fetch him. _Anything_, Lyanna," he told her. "Anything but try to put _Robert Baratheon_ on the throne. Do you think he would be a good king? I hardly doubt he has ever done a day of work in his life."

Robert would make a worse king than Rhaegar, and a better king than Aerys. She told him so before leaving in a fury. "You know," she added, as she walked away. "Sometimes I hate you just as much as I do your father."

For all of Arthur's claim of things not being simple, Lyanna reflected later that day, Rhaegar's life seemed to be surprisingly so; to him, at least. Right and wrong, black and white. He had all intentions of dethroning his father, and yet had branded Ned a traitor for doing so – would have done the same even had Robert not been in the picture. To Rhaegar, he was the only one with any rights to end his father's reign, no matter what. _And you, Rhaegar, do you think yourself with no faults at all?_

"I think you should leave," she told him the next morning; and enjoyed his discomfort for a moment. "To fight, if you want. It would change things."

"Only," Lyanna continued, after a while; with a forced laugh that sounded as false as it felt. "Try not to kill my brother, please."

His eyes stared into hers for a long time.

"When the time is right."

Lyanna Stark married Rhaegar Targaryen when she was seven months gone with his child, a few days after the night she woke up in cold sweats, dreaming she would die in childbirth.

"You told me so many times the child will be a girl," she told him after. "I know what growing up a woman is like, and have no desire to add _bastard-born_ to the list."

He had explained that it would have been simpler to have the child legitimized after the birth, as it surely would; but Lyanna had wanted none of it. "I want to be certain."

Ser Arthur had been their witness, after finding a septon willing to marry them. "I will need proper authorization from His Holiness," the man had objected; and Rhaegar had told him he would have it once the war was over.

"For better or worse," Lyanna had said to Arthur, when she had explained herself to him. "I am not trying to take Elia's place, I swear. I could never." _You do not_, she had thought to herself, _but sometimes you wish you could_. "When the war will be over she will still be the princess of Dorne, and I the daughter of a house of traitors." Unless Robert won. In that case, Lyanna did not want to know what would happen to her child.

They had no House cloaks, but they made do.

It was alright, she found herself thinking. She had no love to pledge either, but the wedding worked out all the same.

They had been married for a fortnight when he had left for King's Landing, leaving both Arthur and Oswell; and sending Ser Gerold as well, from the Red Keep.

Ser Arthur frowned at seeing him. "Who was left behind with the King's family?" he asked. "Barristan?"

The Lord Commander shook his head. "Prince Rhaegar told me he would ask Ser Willem to take his family to Dragonstone. They all went with him to fight in the Riverlands."

Lyanna had frowned at that. "Why not send Prince Lewyn then? I mean, if –"

She was interrupted by Arthur's snicker. "As if the king would ever allow it. You should think yourself lucky, Lady Lyanna, that you never had the pleasure of seeing –"

This time it was Ser Arthur's turn to be interrupt. "Guard your mouth, ser," Ser Gerold say.

They didn't discuss in front of her after that, if they even had anything to discuss. There would be a battle, they all knew, the final one of the war; but they did not know when, and all they could do was to wait.

Rhaegar had been gone three weeks when the ravens arrived.

It was two of them, two messages sent a few days apart; one from Darry, the other one from King's Landing. By sheer chance they arrived the same day, one in the morrow and one by midday; and also by chance they had waited to read them, waiting for Ser Oswell's return from his day's scouting.

By chance, Ser Gerold opened the wrong one first.

Lyanna watched his face as it went from worried to confused to horrified; and felt herself go weak all of a sudden. Her hands felt icy, and there was a bitter taste in her mouth. _If Rhaegar is dead, what will happen to my child?_

"What happened?" she heard a voice say. It sounded so small and scared, and it took her a while to realize it was hers. "Is Rhaegar…"

"The king," Ser Gerold said, slowly, "is well. The war is won."

_The war is won, _was her first thought_. And what about Ned?_

_The king_.

"Did he," Arthur began, hesitant. "Did Rhaegar kill Aerys?"

The other knight shook his head. "You should read for yourself."

Aerys had tried to burn King's Landing with wildfire.

He had been scared after hearing of Rhaegar's victory, Ser Oswell explained to her later, and decided that his son was marching to King's Landing to kill him. "He had wildfire stashed across the city, this past year," the knight said. "He told his pyromancers that the war was lost and Robert was coming to kill them all. Some of them refused to light the fires, a few did. A fifth of the city is gone."

"How did Aerys die?" Lyanna asked. _Burned_, she prayed the gods. _Let him have died by fire as he killed Father_.

"Jaime Lannister," Ser Oswell said, and he sounded bewildered. _But it cannot be. Ser Jaime is Kingsguard_.

There was something else, she knew it. Something terrible.

"Tell me," Lyanna said, and Ser Oswell flinched. "Tell me, I can take it."

"In your state –" he began, but she stopped him.

"Please. Tell me. Is it my brother?" but it wasn't, it couldn't be. Ser Gerold had gone white as he read, and he had no reason to care for Eddard Stark.

"Before he was killed," the knight began, slowly. "Aerys had Princess Elia and her children locked up in the Hand's Tower."

"Then he burned it to the ground."

By the time Lyanna gave birth the war had been won for over a month, and there was no one left at the tower but for Ser Oswell and herself. Ser Gerold had gone to King's Landing, Ser Arthur to Sunspear to the Martells, and Rhaegar had been in King's Landing, busy with assuming the Throne and organizing funeral arrangements for his wife and children.

_Your father burned your family as he did mine_, Lyanna had thought when she had found out, once she had felt well enough to think clearly. _How old were the children?_ she had tried to remember. Little Rhaenys had been three, she thought, and she knew for a fact that Aegon had been barely one month old.

Rhaegar's Prince that was Promised, burned to death by his own grandfather. All of the planning and suffering had been for nothing. Three heads has the dragon, Rhaegar was fond of saying; _but now two of them are dead, and one is not even born yet_.

She pitied Rhaegar now, after he'd lost so much. _His children and his dreams alike went up in flames when the tower burned_. Lyanna spent many a night awake during these days, trying to decide whether she still hated Rhaegar for what had happened to her family, and could not come to a solution. _I swore I'd make him pay_, she thought. _Do I still want to?_

She did not know.

Ned had been wounded in battle and brought to King's Landing, but he must have since recovered. _At least I'll see him there_. Surely Rhaegar wouldn't have her brother killed, or exiled. _Surely no_.

Lyanna's firstborn had black hair as her own and the grey eyes of the Starks; and it was a boy. _I might name him Brandon_, she thought at first, staring into eyes so much like her own, even if only a few days had passed since the birth. Then again, Brandon would be too obvious of a name; the child already had too much of the North in him. _Jon, perhaps_. Her father's grandfather had been called Jon, Lyanna remembered; and she was about to tell Ser Oswell that when it dawned on her that it was Rhaegar's child she was holding, the heir to the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms.

_I suppose he'll need one of those fancy Targaryen names_. She was disappointed, but not overly so. _The gods know he has nothing else of Rhaegar about him_.

_A son_.

She had long since accepted she would have a daughter – Rhaegar had been so sure – but it made sense, in a twisted sort of way. _He needed a princess, but now the prince is dead and he needs a new one_.

_Life and destiny make a mockery of us all_.


	2. The Queen

**Note**: the first part had quotes from Pink Floyd's _Wish You Were Here_, Emile Autumn's _Castle Down_, The Killers' version of _Romeo & Juliet_ and _To Silvia_, by Giacomo Leopardi; this one is set to Jeff Buckley's _Hallelujah _and Emilie Autumn's_ Willow_. Also the title comes from _The Count of Monte Cristo, _because giving away plot points under the pretence of literary references makes me feel clever.  
**Warning:** this chapter contains a detailed description of illness, and it might result triggering to some.

* * *

**– the apparition –**

_she broke your throne  
and she cut your hair  
and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah._

Her arrival to King's Landing went unnoticed, their small party making way into the city with surprising easiness. It was her, Ser Oswell and a Dornish wet nurse called Wylla, a woman of two-and-twenty who had come with them from the village when they had departed. No guards bothered looking under Lyanna's hood and no one recognized Ser Oswell either, not without the white cloak he'd discarded before leaving Dorne, saying it would only attract unwanted attention.

They made their way between the narrow alleys slowly, crowded as it was. Even more so than usual, Ser Oswell told her with a frown, eyes darting about, flinching every time they took a turn and caught a glimpse of the charred remains where once houses had stood. Lyanna had been told so many things about King's Landing, she remembered so much, from Robert's half-hearted remarks and Rhaegar's lengthy tales. She knew that Aery's court was stiff and formal, but very lively, that Flea's Bottom was the worst place in the whole of Westeros but it had such a queer variety to it to put any of the Free Cities to shame, that the Street of Steel was the best kept in the city and that on sunny days Baelor's Sept glistened like a gem in the sun.

And yet the city in front of her was nothing of these things. It was grey and sullen, broken; and there was a sense of doom in the air, and despair on the faces of the men and women who'd been untouched by the wr and yet still betrayed by their protector.

They were stopped once again when they reached the hills, and questioned more thoughtfully this time.

"Find me a knight of the Kingsguard," Ser Oswell told the armsman in front of him, a green boy that could not be any older than Lyanna herself. He obviously was too young to have served before the war, and she could wager he had no idea what Ser Oswell Whent looked like, even with his white cloak and fancy garbs. "Or any knight, really, but make it quick. The king would want to know."

_The king_.

It was Rhaegar he was talking about, she had to remind herself, not Aerys. The king. _King of a broken kingdom, over a broken city, and what does it make me?_ Lyanna was not sure she wanted to know.

It was Ser Barristan who come to meet them, smiling when he saw his Sworn Brother waiting for him; but his eyes went cold when he saw Lyanna, and he nodded in understanding as she willed herself not to show any emotion. _I don't deserve your contempt_, she thought. Or anger, or pity, or whatever it had been. She was no longer a child, not after everything, and she was Ser Barristan's king's wife._ It could have been worse, _she told herself_. It could have been Lewyn Martell coming to greet us._

Lyanna took a breath and forced herself to smile, nodding graciously to the man as she would have a young guardsman in Winterfell, until the Kingsguard was forced to acknowledge her presence with a bow of the head.

"Lady Lyanna," he said. "The king will be waiting for you."

They led away Wylla to some visitor's quarters, the babe with her – no one had asked the obvious question yet, but she knew they were only waiting for Rhaegar's order. Ser Barristan showed her to the king's – Rhaegar's solar – walking quickly enough that it was a strain for her to follow, after all that riding._ Slow down_, she wanted to say,_ I've only given birth a moon ago; but Lyanna would be damned before she showed any weakness_.

She had heard about King's Landing from both Robert and Rhaegar, the former in teasing, lightly mocking remarks about Aerys's nobles and the smallfolk alike, the latter with the same sort of pensive intensity he put into everything he did. They had told her so many different things, but in one they had both agreed. King's Landing was a snake's pit; and she wouldn't let herself be bitten. _Not after everything_.

There was black silk all over the walls in the solar, Aerys's ghost still in the room when Lyanna entered. Rhaegar stood to greet her, and he looked like a waxen statue in the light that came from the windows, pale and unearthly, almost glowing in the dark room.

"Lyanna," he called, moving in closer, embracing her; and she wondered how long he'd waited to do that. She could almost picture him as he'd been since his return, calm and stoical, the one the whole kingdom turned to for support, with no one to turn to. _And whose fault is that?_ Not wholly Rhaegar, she knew, not even close, for all of his mistakes; and she let him put his arms around her, knowing he would shatter if he didn't.

"Your Grace," she said; and felt him flinch.

"I am sorry," Lyanna told him, as he mad to move away; feeling strangely elated in knowing he would believe her. If there was only one person in Westeros who would believe that Lyanna was sincere in mourning Elia Martell and her children, Rhaegar was it.

"I am so very, very sorry," she repeated win a whisper, like she might have done for her child, to calm him. She raised one had to stroke his back slowly, holding, supporting, not letting go.

It was much later when he led her to a sitting chair.

"What about," he started to ask, not quite knowing how to ask.

"It is a boy," Lyanna said, and smiled. _My beautiful boy_.

"A boy," Rhaegar repeated, surprised. "That is…"

He stopped then, and she knew what he was thinking. He'd been sure it would be a girl, so certain, the Visenya to his young Aegon, and he had not even considered it might not be. But with his heir dead another son would be the best thing and in that moment Lyanna could almost read his thoughts as clearly as if they'd been a book open for her peruse. _He is thinking that maybe this is how things should have gone from the start_, she told herself in sudden realization. _That Elia's children are dead because they weren't the ones in the prophecy at all_.

_His is the song of ice and fire_, she remembered with a bolt, feeling herself shiver. _Is such a cruel prophecy worth your life, Rhaegar?_

"That is very good," he said eventually. "The Council will be pleased." Something twisted in his face as he said, and Lyanna knew they were thinking the same thing. _What's left of it_.

"Have you named him yet?" Rhaegar asked all of a sudden, taking Lyanna by surprise.

"I thought you would want to," she answered, and he meet her eyes in surprise, oddly pleased. Lyanna bit her lip.

"But…" she began, searching for the right words. "My son is no replacement for the ones you have lost," Lyanna said eventually, harsh as it was, and she knew he'd understood. _Don't you dare name him Aegon as well, no matter what your prophecy says_.

"Of course," he told her, as if the idea had not even crossed his mind. She knew it had. "Perhaps you should choose, then."

"I will," Lyanna said.

She glanced around the room, noticing what were without a doubt Aerys's things – the sturdy desk and tall, narrow chairs stuffed with red silken cushions, the wood a dark walnut carved with intricate designs. "This room is gloomy," she offered, and he let out a short laugh.

It was the first time she could remember hearing him laugh in what felt like an eternity – not since the time he'd fist felt the babe kick, she seemed to remember. He was looking at her now as he'd done that, love and dedication in his eyes. She tried not to think much about it.

"You can make it however you want," he said. "The room, the castle, the city. You can change everything."

There was such affection in his voice, love even; and she wondered since when Rhaegar had started to fall in love with her. _Was it when his other wife died, on when I gave him a heir?_ She felt nauseous.

Change everything._ Would it that it were so easy_, Lyanna thought then; and it wasn't.

She tried her best thought; oh, how she tried. She had Aerys's things brought out of the king's rooms in Maegor's, so that Rhaegar could move in if he so wished, and would have had them burnt had not the memory of Aerys's great fires still fresh. She spent those first few, quiet days with Rhaegar whenever he was working in his rooms, asking questions, trying to size things up, to make up for the year she had spent in complete isolation.

Lyanna never gave advice and he never offered, if not for the rare instances when she confronted him directly. That very first day she asked what he meant to do with the rebellious lords – _with what is left of my family_, she never said, but he understood all the same.

"Your father more than gave them cause for rebellion," she told him, and he nodded.

"Rebellion cannot go unpunished," Rhaegar answered at that. "If only for the sake of those who fought for the kingdom, and for those who died."

Oh, she knew it all too well; but she hated it all the same. "Let Ned go home," she asked him. "Please."

In the end he did, but Lyanna suspected he would have even without her intervention - it wasn't in Rhaegar nature to be cruel, merely just. _So much like Ned_, Lyanna thought. _So obsessed with rights and wrongs and justice_.

They were married once again in sight of gods and men, in a ceremony that was nowhere as grand as she had been told that Princess Elia's funeral had been; and it suited Lyanna just right. There were only a handful of witnesses, but the High Septon himself proclaimed them married; and it could not have been more official than that.

His lips were dry when Lyanna kissed him, and she wondered if he could taste her regrets in her mouth.

She _was_ queen now, for better or worse, no longer the little girl who'd loved to play with swords in the yard at Winterfell. Girl no longer, and the world seemed to have accepted it well enough – the whole world, to be sure, but for Lyanna herself. Whenever she closed her eyes she was still the maid in the tower, helpless and alone, no means to escape. _I must free myself if I truly want to_, she thought, and imagined how it would be.

Whenever she'd played Monsters and Maid back in Winterfell with Ben, Lyanna would slain her own monsters by herself. _I can fight as well as any man_, she used to say. _And what happens when all the monsters are dead? Whom do I have to slain to be free?_

She met Ned, briefly, on the second day; and it was every bit as awkward and tense as she knew it would be. What could one say to the brother who'd rebelled against one king for the wrongs done to their family, only to have her marry the next?

In the end, they did not talk much. Ned was older than she remembered, a warrior and a lord in his own right and, she remembered all of a sudden, a married man and a father; but he was as stiff during their meeting as he had been while talking to Lady Ashara at Harrenhall.

_Lady Ashara_, Lyanna thought, _who danced with Ned and laughed with him and found her way to Brandon's bed_. She would have laughed at the absurdity of it. And Ned, married to Catelyn Tully – she wondered how _that_ would turn out, hoped for his sake it would be a good marriage. _Ned, married_; she would have teased him mercilessly only two years ago, but now all she could do was to laugh herself at him, no matter that he made no move to hold him, her body shaken by silent sobs.

_Crying is not something Lyanna Stark did_, she used to think once. What a stupid child she had been. _I miss them, Ned_, she whispered in his ear, even when he probably blamed her for their deaths. _I wish I could go back_, she said, but she couldn't.

He embraced her back then, hiding whatever bitter feelings he might harbor toward her. "Lya," he said, only a word, but it was enough.

Ned would leave King's Landing when all the other lords did, let go on the strength of their words, because Rhaegar had chosen to show his trust and because he could not have done otherwise, not with his host exhausted and King's Landing in shambles. Ned would make for Riverrun and Winterfell at last, and Benjen would come in his place, same as Lord Tully's young son and Stannis Baratheon's brother. Ben would be as much as an hostage to Rhaegar as a comfort to Lyanna, both of them knew it; and she was glad.

_Things could have gone worse_, she decided. So much worse.

"Lya," Ned said. "Will you… be happy?"

_Oh, Ned_.

Lyanna had told him of how Rhaegar had always shown her the uttermost kindness, how he cared her more than Robert even had. He cares for the person I am, Ned, she'd promised him, tasting Brandon's words in her mouth. She'd told him that he was nothing like his father, and saw Ned somewhat reassured. She had not told him a word that wasn't true and kept the worst to herself, and everything would work out well enough in the end.

"I'll have Ben," she told him. "I'll be happy. And my son. Ned, he looks like you."

He beamed at her at that, talked of his own son – Robb, they had named him, an unfortunate name after the Trident, but she did not said that to him – and how he had yet to see him.

"I am sure he will be beautiful," Lyanna said.

"What about your son?" Ned asked her then. "What have you named him?"

They had not talked of it again, Rhaegar and she, but she supposed it was for the best. It would have to be a Targaryen name, of course, to make up for his northern features, the name of some great ancestor from the song. Lyanna did not want a king's name for her son.

When she went back to Rhaegar that evening, she told him she would name their son Daemon, and smiled at his surprised look. _And I bet you thought I couldn't surprise you anymore, Rhaegar_.

"That is… a bold choice," he told her, and she smiled.

"You know me, my lord. I pride on being bold."

She slept in the chambers that had been Aerys's and dreamed of her brother's last moments every night, but she never let her discomfort show. _Does it count as being bold,_ she wondered. _Or a coward?_

Later they told her that Oberyn Martell had laughed when he had been told about the new prince named after the bastard usurper; the only one to do so, as bitter as his laugh had been. Lyanna frowned at that, realizing she had not even know the Prince was still in King's Landing.

"With all respect, Your Grace," Ser Arthur said. "He would hardly care to let you know." He had been the one who'd told her about the Prince's reaction, and had been rather amused himself as well.

"You did well," he'd told her. For all that the Kingsguard only protected and did not judge, he did not care to hold his tongue, and she appreciated that. "Letting the court know that you're aware of what they are saying about you and your son, and that you don't care."

"I am glad someone appreciated the irony," Lyanna said; no matter that Ser Arthur would likely have been one of those gossiping behind her back had he not been held back by his oath. She asked him to send words to Prince Oberyn that she wanted to see him then, and he almost laughed in her face.

"You go tell him," she repeated; and Ser Arthur went and came back to report her Prince Oberyn's answer, word for word, looking as though he were repeating the greatest joke he'd ever heard.

"I suppose one must find their amusement whenever they may," Lyanna told the Kingsguard, acting for the world as if she did not care; but inside she was trembling. _This is how it starts._

It was almost a whole moon after her arrival that Ser Jaime Lannister was brought in front of Rhaegar, bound hands and feet, to answer for his crime of killing the king.

Long enough had passed from the end of the war that enough nobles had returned to court, and the Great Hall was crowded. Rhaegar himself stood in front of the throne rather than sat on it, and only Lyanna knew that it was because he'd had no occasion to have Aerys's blood cleaned from it yet.

Lord Lannister was there as well, returned to court after more than two years; and so was his daughter, who was as beautiful as Lyanna had heard the men saying. Lord Tywin wanted her to marry Viserys, Rhaegar had explained to her, but he had not yet made the offer, likely still irked at having been passed over for the office of Hand of the King. _He would make a better Hand than Lord Tyrell_, he'd said, _but…_

And Lyanna had understood. But Mace Tyrell had been the one fighting in the war, and good actions had to be rewarded. Black and white; everything was so simple, in Rhaegar's books.

Today Lord Tyrell was seated next to Rhaegar in the throne room, closer to him than anyone else in the court. Lyanna herself had kept her distance, wanting to see how everything would unfold without the distraction of her presence; she sat aside with only Ser Arthur for company; in the shadowed part of the room, the way Varys usually did. Lyanna had talked to Varys a few times – the eunuch seemed to find her interesting, more for her youth than anything else, she suspected, but Lyanna would take what she could get. _If they want to think I am a child, let them._ She only hoped she could recognize whenever she was the one being played.

It was, all in all, a very brief affair.

There were no witnesses called, only a brief account of the events. There were no accusers, not truly. King Aerys had to die, all of Westeros agreed, even those who had fought on the right side of the rebellion, and they would have cheered Jaime Lannister for a hero had he not been in the Kingsguard.

As things were, most lords were only curious to see what would happen. A few called for the Night's Watch, and some more for Ser Jaime to be stripped of his white cloak which, Lyanna could guess easily enough, was exactly what Lord Tywin wanted.

Ser Jaime himself did not seem to care much for one possibility or the other. He merely stood in his place, still and brazen as Lord Mace talked, and he did not seem to have a care in the world. He shrugged when it was his time to talk, looking into Rhaegar's eyes as he did it.

"We all know what happen," he said. "Someone needed to stop him before…"

He paused at that and took a sharp breath, and Lyanna wondered how much he must have seen during his two years with Aerys, how long it had taken before he stopped thinking like the king's sworn shield and decided to kill him.

"Someone needed to stop it," Ser Jaime continued. "And I was the only one there. I might have done it differently," he added the last part with an ironic nod towards Lord Hightower, who'd gone at great lengths to explain the many ways the other man could have stopped Aerys without resorting to kill. The Hightowers were a numerous family and much favored, and a spot on the Kingsguard was very coveted. Ser Jaime smiled then, and Lyanna recognized that smile. It was reckless and desperate and stupid, and she'd seen it in the mirror one too many times.

"I swore to protect the king and I killed him, but I had sworn to protect the Princess as well, and he killed her. If I'd done it sooner, he wouldn't have."

The room filled with murmurs and Lyanna felt Ser Arthur stiffen by her side.

"That little Lannister _shit_."

"We should leave," he told her, all but tugging on her sleeve. "Before everyone else does it."

He was angry, she could see it; because Jaime Lannister's words were the absolute truth, and he should never have said them.

Lyanna had learnt much about the Kingsguard in the past two years; they were an order with a code of honor infinitely more complex than that of most knights, every bit as that of the Night's Watch. As the Watch guarded the kingdom and took no part, the Kingsguard guarded the king's family and did not judge, never where others could listen.

Lyanna had barely talked to Prince Lewyn since her arrival, but even she could see how utterly furious he had been after Elia's death – furious enough that he would have gutted the king with his own hands had he been there, a sentiment Arthur shared and not even the Lord Commander could bring himself to condemn; but none of them would admit to it, and certainly not at a public trial.

"What will happen to Ser Jaime now?" she asked him as they walked; and he sighed.

"Same thing that would have happened if he hadn't said anything, I suppose," Arthur told her. "He'll go to Dragonstone to Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys, but I wager he will not be back for a while."

"That's it?" Lyanna was surprised. "I expected… something different."

"And so did Tywin Lannister, without a doubt." The Kingsguard did not presume to judge the king, but they were free to judge every other lord in the realm if they so wished. "He probably was the one who told his son to mouth off, and Jaime…"

There was something in Ser Arthur's eyes that reminded her of Brandon, whenever he was worried about Benjen doing something stupid. Lyanna looked away.

"He's barely more than a boy."

Lyanna made a point of glaring at him. "Ser Jaime is one year older than I am, Ser."

He almost smiled. "You are most definitely not a boy, Your Grace."

Jaime Lannister set sail the next morning for Dragonstone, and it was months before Lyanna saw him again.

They days seemed to go by faster after that, and the spring gave way to summer. Benjen arrived shortly after, their reunion more difficult than that with Ned had been.

"It's all my fault, Lya," he said. "I was the one who told Brandon about you, you know. I should have waited, I should have tried to calm him…"

"Oh, Ben." She had never knew that, but she was hardly going to blame him. "Let me introduce you to your nephew," she told him instead, and Ben smiled when she showed him into the nursery.

"He looks like Ned," he said.

Benjen told her about young Lord Robb and how he looked exactly like his mother. "At least we know he is going to turn up pretty," he joked. He also said that Ned and his wife seemed to like each other well enough, and that he was having a southron sept built especially for her.

"How are you, really?" he asked her then, and she smiled at him.

"You should not worry," Lyanna told him, and she meant it. "I am good, and the king loves me well."

And Rhaegar did, she knew, or at least he thought he did, which made no difference. He repeated her as much when they were together at nights, his hands caressing her body almost reverently, kissing her like he was a man dying of thirst, and she wished with all her heart things were different. Sometimes she caught herself thinking about Elia, wondering whether he'd loved her too, but she stopped every time, thinking such thoughts would get her nowhere.

All that mattered was that the king loved _her_ now; and he never seemed to worry if he were loved back. _And why should he? He has been loved his whole life_. Rhaegar played for her more often than not, of Jenny and the Prince of Dragonflies as he'd done at Harrenhall, and songs he'd written himself; and she would smile and that would be enough. They spent time together often, riding out of the gates or in the godsood, and sometimes even into the city; and Rhaegar always seemed content enough with taking what she had to give, asking for nothing more.

_It is all well in the end_, Lyanna thought, because she knew she would never have anything else to give. She did not love Rhaegar, would never let herself love him, but still liked him well enough; enough to have been content to spend all her life with him, had things be different. But he was still a dragon, her brother and father dead because of him; and that Lyanna could never forget.

Three days after Benjen's arrival, she finally went to talk to Oberyn Martell. The prince kept refusing her company whenever she asked him, which Lyanna could understand well enough; but that did not mean she had to agree with him. _What's the sense in being queen,_ she told herself bitterly, _if I cannot order people around?_

The Kingsguard were meeting in a session with only Ser Lyn and Ser Aron guarding the king, and she'd excused herself from their supper, saying she would retire. _All the better to be alone_, she knew it. Lyanna made her way to the prince's rooms with deliberate strides, knocking at the door loud enough to wake him had he been asleep – but she doubted. Oberyn Martell never slept alone, they said, and it was early enough in the day that he was probably still alone.

He was no particularly fond of servants either, she knew it, and he opened the door himself rather quickly.

"Your Grace," the prince said, slowly, as if trying up the words for size. He gave her a twisted grin, as if he were tasting something particularly bitter. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Oberyn Martell had arrived in King's Landing for his sister's funeral ceremony, and remained upon his appointment to the Small Council. He was Master of Laws, Lyanna knew, and attended every meeting while still refusing to talk to Rhaegar directly. He would have gone back to Dorne long ago, she suspected, if not for the hope to arrange Viserys's marriage to his brother's daughter and the pleasure of irking Mace Tyrell with his very presence.

"Prince Oberyn," Lyanna nodded at him. "Can we have that talk?"

"What for?" he seemed genuinely curious. _He has to be, after all the message I sent him_. "I do not think _you_," and again that twist of the mouth, "have anything to say to me."

"I wanted to ask a something of you" she confessed, and he laughed.

It was a full-fledged laugh, not a feigned one, and she wondered if perhaps he was drunk. It was something he would do, by all accounts, only another way to spite her; but Lyanna hoped he wasn't. She wanted him to be lucid.

"Whatever else could you ever want from me? You took enough, Your Grace."

"Offer you my apologies, for once," she said, and he was so startled at that he did not have a retort ready. Lyanna made her way inside without having being invited, and started speaking quickly. "For something that was not my fault, I might add, and I did not ask for it."

And then she told him the rest.

"You are madder than Aerys," he looked bewildered, which she thought was an improvement over looking murderous. "Suicidal."

Perhaps she might be, Lyanna supposed. She had nothing left to live for, nothing but a husband whose touch filled her with regrets, and a son who would be cared for no matter what happened to her… but not, she did not want to die. _I want to live_.

Had she wanted to die, she would have gone to Varys.

"_You are suicidal_ is not an answer."

"You…"

Oberyn moved in closer, but he looked neither threatening nor intimidating. He merely looked hollow; but still, she could not help but notice, less than he had before.

"You know," he said, deceptively lazily. "I think I can see why all these fools like you so much."

Lyanna decided that was a compliment.

The weeks turned into months, and King's Landing returned slowly to the fasts of the days before the war. Lyanna had hosted two balls and one tournament in that time, doing her best to smile at Rhaegar's side ignoring the memories of Harrenhall; and enough time had passed that she was no longer a curiosity.

There was a terrible storm the night Queen Rhaella gave birth to her daughter, Daenerys. She died in childbed; from what Lyanna had heard about her, she had lost the will to live long ago. The Queen Mother had wished for the ashes from her funeral pyre to be dispersed in the sea and young Viserys was the one to do it, his small face pale and tense. Lyanna watched him as he cried, and feel herself shiver. _I am a Targaryen now_, she thought. _Will they burn me as well once I'm gone?_

They departed Dragonstone shortly afterward, leaving Rhaegar's brother and newborn sister still behind on the island. "Viserys loves Dragonstone," he explained her. "Much more than he'd ever liked King's Landing. It is for the best."

Lyanna thought that perhaps the young prince would have preferred to stay with his brother, but she could read between the lines well enough. _How often does he dreams of Aegon and Rhaenys burning when he sleeps?_

They traveled to Storm's End for Lord Stannis's marriage, and Lyanna had a good look around the castle that had almost been her home, trying her best not to think of Robert. It was fairly easy, all considered. Of all the ghosts that plagued her, Robert Baratheon was the quietest.

"I would have hated it here," she told Rhaegar that night as they danced. "Of course, King's Landing is hardly better."

But Catelyn Tully was Lady of Winterfell now, and her father's house was hers no longer. _I need to make my own home._

Rhaegar had always enjoyed their banters, and always would. He smiled at her, leaning in to kiss her lips. Lyanna felt the weight of Cersei Lannister's gaze burning into her back, and smiled into the kiss.

"You should see Summerhall," he told her. "I seem to remember you've always wanted to travel."

_Travel and see the world and fight in tourneys and never, ever marry_, Lyanna thought. _And yet here I am_. Of course, she had more freedom in her marriage than she would have with everyone else, except perhaps in the North, and Rhaegar hardly bedded whores. _It could have been worse_.

But since when had Lyanna Stark been a settler?

"That I did."

"We should go visit," Rhaegar said. "When we go back to King's Landing. It's still beautiful, despite everything. And once it's summer, would you like to show me the North?"

"What," she smiled at him. "Are you waiting for the snow to melt? Because that will never happen."

And then the music changed and he held her closer. Lyanna let her head rest against his chest. "I'd love that," she said.

When they got back to King's Landing, the king fell ill.

**_– the sun also rises –_**

_these wicked pastimes take their toll,  
these tyrant vices break your soul  
deliver me from all I am  
and all I never want to be_

It all started quietly enough; so much that Lyanna herself barely noticed. He would retire early in the evenings, sleep longer in the mornings, cut short his spars in the training yard earlier than usual. Rhaegar thought it to be mere tiredness at first, no matter that he had dealt with demanding duties for the better part of his life; and if ever felt light-headed whenever he sparred well, he must be out of practice.

It was during one of such days that it happened. Lyanna had not been there but she could imagine it well enough, the clashing of weapons, the shouts of the men, Rhaegar smiling in satisfaction after one particularly difficult parry because, for all that he did not love swordplay as much as other men did, he found pleasure in winning all the same. Lyanna had seen him in the yard often enough to be familiar with his gestures, the way he moved, and could almost see in her mind how he must have stumbled and fallen, hitting the ground unconscious with no apparent reason.

It had been Ser Arthur who had carried him back to his room, of course; for all of their differences, the knight still cared deeply for his friend. Ser Gerold had been the one to inform Lyanna of what had happened, his face somber; but Arthur had been the one who'd never left Rhaegar's side, as Gran Maester Pycelle came and went.

"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with His Grace," Pycelle began, and Ser Arthur spoke up before even Lyanna could.

"There clearly is _something_ wrong," he said, and the maester flinched but ignored him.

"– apparently, but he is very weak. I asked him for how long he had been feeling ill and he said it had been a few months. Now," the man continued, looking somber, "if it were a simply _passing ill_, like the king said it was, it would not have lasted so long. He will have to stay in bed now, for a few days, and take some potions for strength…"

It would not be enough, Lyanna thought as she felt her head spin. It would not be enough but she did it all the same, having every potion prepared exactly as the gran maester instructed, and reading Rhaegar his papers and reports when he complained he could not do it himself.

"I feel like an old woman," he said, and she laughed; and it did not sound forced at all.

Lyanna dreamed of home that night, being a child again and playing with Benjen in the snow, and in the morning she woke up nauseous.

"Gods be good," she whispered as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, face white as a sheet. "Please not now."

But gods seldom were.

Rhaegar was feeling better only a few days later and was out of bed by the end of the week; only to be forced into his rooms again when he collapsed during a Small Council meeting. This time, the Grand Maester's face was dark.

"I think it might be some sort of wasting sickness," he said; and Lyanna, who had been expecting nothing less, felt the urge to cry.

"Is there any way to tell for sure?" she asked, as she knew it was expected of her; but he knew what the answer would be before Pycelle even opened his mouth. Rhaegar had a set of books on medicine, with beautiful illuminations by Grand Maester Fallon himself, and Lyanna had read it more than once.

The maester shook his head. "You cannot tell wasting sickness for sure, Your Grace," _unless you open up the body_, Lyanna knew it; but without a doubt the Grand Maester did not want to upset her.

_Upset me_. What a laugh.

That day the sunset found her in the godswood, in front of the great oak. The gods were silent here in the South, and the tree was no weirwood, but she found herself reminded of Harrenhall all the same. _That is a pretty shield you have_, she remembered, clear as if it had been yesterday, and when she blinked there were tears falling from her eyes.

"Isn't a bit too soon to play the grieving widow, Your Grace?"

It was Oberyn Martell, sure enough; and she turned to glare at him, eyes still red. He sounded somewhat like Brandon had, with that light mocking tone of his, but her brother had never been so embittered.

Then again, Brandon had died first. _The lucky one_.

"Prince Oberyn," she called. _I'm not playing_, she wanted to say. _I mean it_. But she herself was no longer sure. After so much time spent pretending, she had almost forgotten how much of Lyanna Stark was real, and how much was pretense. _Or regret_.

"This is odd," Lyanna said instead, trying to keep her voice even. _I am not upset. Why should I be?_ "I could have sworn you spent months avoiding me, and now you come looking?"

"You know what they say." He smiled at her. He was an handsome man, with a dark charm that was nothing like Rhaegar's; but there was nothing beautiful in that smile, only danger. "Things change."

_Indeed they do_.

A fortnight later Rhaegar could no longer eat more than a few spoonful without retching; food at first, then blood. That was the day when he turned to look at her, tired and worn, his purple eyes blazing.

"I am dying," he said. "Am I?"

Lyanna had always preferred truth to lies.

"We all are," she told him, and he smiled a measly smile.

"Some of us sooner than the others, is that what you meant to say?"

And to think that once she had thought Rhaegar Targaryen never made jokes. Lyanna found herself laughing at that, so hard she could not stop, and then the laughs turned into broken sobs.

He moved to embrace her then, as weak as his hold was, and they stayed like that until the dawn came.

She was walking the corridors with Ser Jonothor later the following day when she had to stop to rest against the wall, dizzy as she was, and saw the glimpse of fear passing through the knight's eyes.

"It is nothing," she told him. "I must be tired."

He insisted to call for Pycelle all the same, no matter that she reminded him it could not be the same illness as Rhaegar had. Wasting sickness was not contagious, Lyanna said, and the Grand Maester confirmed it; and also confirmed her worries.

"I believe you might be with child, Your Grace," the man said. "Congratulations. Of course now you must –"

"Please," Lyanna interrupted him. "Please do not say I shouldn't overexert myself, maester. The king is _dying_."

It was the first time she had said as much out loud, and somehow it made it sound more real. _Rhaegar is dying_. How long, she wondered, how long did he have?

"Yes," Pycelle said, slowly. "Of course, I apologize. His Grace should be informed as soon as possible, it might help him recover."

_It won't_.

Rhaegar smiled when she told him, because a man who's dying will always be glad to know he is leaving something behind, no matter that he likely would not live enough to see his child's birth.

"I love you," he told Lyanna, tender as always – he had always been gentle, even when he had all of his strength, always touched her as she was the most precious thing he'd ever had. "So much," he continued, and she thought, _Robert would've never told it me like this_. She had never wanted Robert's love and hadn't know what to do with it when she had it; but Rhaegar's attention and respect, these were things she had always wanted. _Robert would have broken me_, she knew it; and never more than that night she was glad that Robert was gone and it was Rhaegar she was married to.

_For however long we have left_.

"I love you," she said; and in the dark, she could pretend she really meant it.

The second person she told about her pregnancy was Oberyn Martell.

His black eyes showed no emotion, like those of a statue, and Lyanna wished she could read his intentions on his face. _Nothing needs to change_, she told herself. But would he think the same?

"Oh," he said, simply. "I see." They were in the godswood once again, still in the same spot. It was secluded enough, she supposed; and she told herself that it wasn't that it made her think of Winterfell.

"And they told me you were witty."

That he was, the kind of wit that hurt more than a blade. Oberyn turned to look at her. "Do you want me to–" he paused. "I know a woman. In case Elia ever would…"

He let his voice fade and she stared at him, surprised by the unexpected kindness in his voice. It was a suggestion, she realized, not a condition. "Oh no," Lyanna said. "No."

"I thought about it," she continued, and it was his turn to look surprised. "So much, so often, before I even knew it for sure. I did not even go see the maester until I was nearly forced to, did not want some part of _him_ to stay after he was gone." She already had Daemon, of course, but he did not count. Her firstborn was her greatest joy, had been beacon of hope during the war; he was more a part of her than he'd ever be Rhaegar, and not only in looks.

Her second child would be a king's child, born in the Red Keep under the watchful eyes of the Grand Maester, hers for no longer than a few hours. _Like Elia's children_.

"But he is a good man, and every child of his would be good, too," Lyanna said, as terribly ironic as t was to be telling these words to Oberyn Martell of all people; but who else there was to listen? She was not quite gone enough to start talking with the heart tree. Gods never listened.

"A good man," the disbelief was thick in his voice, and she heard the unexpressed question.

"Rhaegar is very just, you know," she continued. "A reward for every good action, a punishment for every crime; no matter the intentions. It all reminds me quite a lot of my brother Ned, truth be told. A very simple way to see the world."

Lyanna stared right in his eyes, and she knew he had understood. "And if it ever happens that a good man were to commit a crime, he would be punished all the same."

He laughed. Of all the laughs she'd heart from Oberyn Martell, this might have been the most sincere yet. "And who'll judge _us_, Your Grace?"

"The gods?"

He laughed even harder at that. "May they have mercy on our souls."

She was five months along when Rhaegar's composure started to break.

"I talked to Pycelle this morning," he began, and she could see he had to force himself to keep his voice even. "I will be dead in two months. Three if the gods are good."

_And when are they ever?_

"Lyanna," he said. He never called her _Lya_, not when it sounded so much like the name of his first wife. "It will be a hard two months. I… I do not think you should be here to see it."

The Grand Maester had told her the same. Rhaegar's eyesight had started to fade, and Pycelle expected he would have difficulties to breathe soon. Lyanna had tried to tell herself he might be wrong, as he was wrong on the nature of the king's sickness, but it had done nothing to calm her.

"I don't want to leave." She never would, until he was dead and after. _You cannot ignore the consequences of you actions_, Father used to say; and it wasn't good enough of a penance, to sit in there every day looking at Rhaegar dying under her gaze, but it was good enough of a start.

"I know," he said. "I don't want to wait two months to die either."

Despite everything, she could not control the sob that made its way through her lips at that. _But of course he would_. "I understand," Lyanna said, and she truly did. Rhaegar was not the sort of man who dreamt of a warrior's death but rather the kind who prayed for a peaceful one; and now both were denied to him.

He closed his eyes, exhausted. "I'd hoped you would."

"And how are you," he asked, after a few long moments. "Truly?"

"As good as it's to be expected," she answered, slowly, wondering how to say it to him. "Quite tired. Either the babe's very strong, or there's two of them."

"Really?" That piqued his interest as she knew it would. Rhaegar he shifted over to sit straighter, or as much as he could; and Lyanna felt her heart tighten.

"The midwife told me it might be likely." There was no midwife to say such thing, no one but Pycelle; but Rhaegar was not likely to find out, and Lyanna smiled at him with an ease she did not feel. "But it is too early to know it for certain."

The smile he gave her lightened his sallow face. "Do you suppose is it too early to discuss names as well?"

"Of course not," she told him. "You should have the naming." _Since you will not live past the morrow_. Lyanna continued speaking with a cheerfulness she did not feel, trying not to think. "I hope it will be a girl. Or two. Can you imagine, two girls?"

"Yes," he nodded, his voice feeble. "It would be beautiful."

In truth, she hoped for a son – she would not know what to do with a girl if she ever had a daughter, after all; but there was no harm in telling Rhaegar what he wanted to hear. _One last kindness, for the wrongs I've done to him._ She wondered what would happen with Rhaegar's prophecy, whether there truly were three heads of the dragons, if they were dead or alive. She found herself believing in it, despite everything - Lyanna was more ready to discard her father's gods, powerless as they seemed to be, than she was to ignore a prophecy of war and destruction.

_Of course it will come true_, she thought. War and destruction always did, after all. _What will happen if the time comes and there is no one to protect us?_

Rhaegar could have, perhaps, but it was too late.

"There is something I need from you," she said then, remembering all of a sudden. It was odd to think she'd almost forgotten, and she did not want to know what that meant.

"When," Lyanna paused, found her words. "I do not want anyone else being Regent for my son, but me."

That was it; final. She sent for Ser Gerold and Maester Pycelle, with paper and quill and whatever potion the maester had decided fit to prepare.

"Should I send for Ser Arthur as well?" Lyanna asked, but he shook his head.

"Already talked," he said, and she had the sense there had been many words unsaid.

Rhaegar had been writing letters those past weeks, to his brother Viserys and to the infant sister he would never know; to Jon Connington, who had been in Astapor with the Golden Company when the war had ended and still had not made it back; and to Doran Martell, a long letter, the one he'd started writing first. Lyanna wondered whether he had one for her as well, to be delivered once he was embers and ashes. _Most likely_, she decided. Rhaegar was nothing if not meticulous.

She wondered whether she would ever have the resolve to read it.  
_Most likely no_.

The Grand Maester came with the Lord Commander following him, and it was over surprisingly fast. Words were exchanged and parchments signed, and she found herself eyeing Pycelle's potion, wondering what it would taste like, how long it would be before the world went away from around her.

_I should probably ask Oberyn_, she found herself thinking. _He would know_.

She wondered how the one she'd given Rhaegar had tasted like.

Once they were gone, Rhaegar looked at her. "Lya," he said, and she winced. She had never heard him using the name before. _Why now_, she thought, wondering about symbolism and deathbed realizations, until it dawned on her that he was probably trying to save his breath.

"Hello," she called at him, as softly as she could, feeling tears escape from her eyes. _So stupid, Lya_, she thought. _You are so stupid_.

Lyanna looked at him, truly looked, beyond the pale skin and the sunken eyes, saw the man she had met by mere chance by the lake at Harrenhall, a lifetime ago. _He was so beautiful_, she remembered, but it had been an unearthly beauty, that of ghosts and statues and gods, and the Rhaegar she had come to know was anything but. She remembered the black armor with the rubies in it, the way he had looked like the Warrior himself, sun playing with his hair as he made his way toward her, that damned crown of roses on his lance.

_We were so young_, Lyanna realized. So _achingly_ young the lot of them, she and Ben and Ned without a beard, and Brandon, her beautiful Brandon, smiling at her from behind his helm when it had been his turn to joust. They had been so young then, and life was so marvelous and full of promise, like the spring they had thought was about to begin; but winter had come instead, and they all died.

And now it was summer; summer in the South, hot and sultry and humid, clothes so wet with sweat they revealed every inch of skin, and the drenched hair on Rhaegar's forehead. They were all dead and Rhaegar had lived; and now he would die, too. _Won't Robert be glad to know I succeeded where he failed? _

But she had never cared much for Robert's opinion either ways.

Lyanna took his hand between hers and cried. _Lyanna Stark never cries_, she used to brag, back when she was a child and life was easier. Now, as she lay to rest beside Rhaegar's still form, counting his breaths until the last, Lyanna thought back to the girl she had been, the different life she might have had, if not for the man dying in front of her. _I wishes were horses, all beggars would be knights_.

If only they had met differently, if only Brandon had not died. If only. Perhaps they could have good lives had they met sooner, had they met each other _first_. Rhaegar's breaths were slower now, so terribly slow, and she wished she could have loved him as he did her, wished he could have been a person she could have loved. She wished, she wished.

She wished so desperately it hurt, but wishes amount to nothing in the end.

When she emerged from the chamber, her eyes were dry and her hands still.

"The king is dead," she told Ser Barristan, tasting the words in her mouth. _The king is dead_.

"I wish – I think I should be alone now, for a while, Ser," Lyanna continued, and he nodded at her, his eyes softened. "Send for –" whoever is that she needed to send for. Silent sisters. The High Septon, perhaps. _The king's dead is enough to bring His Holiness down from Baelor's and up another hill, isn't?_ "Send someone to call me in a few hours, please."

He nodded once again and she made for the other door, the one that led to her private rooms instead of the corridor. Ser Arthur would be waiting there, and she did not want to be the one to look him in the face and tell him the king was dead.

He would read her guilt on her face.

It was much later that when everything was done, all the things Lyanna should have taken care of and yet left to someone else. All she did was to write letters at first, as if putting her thoughts and lies to paper would clear her head. Perhaps it did.

She wrote to Ned first, telling him that she would be alright but he was always welcome to visit, if he so wished; to the maester at Dragonstone to ask for the Prince and Princess to come as soon as possible and prepared to stay a long while; and finally to Jon Arryn, asking for help and nothing more. She figured he probably will; the man had loved Robert and she was the reason he was dead, but he loved Ned as well. _Maybe_, she told herself, not quite daring to hope.

Rhaegar had a letter written for her as she had known he would, and she locked it in a chest hoping to forget about it.

Lyanna was the one to inform Prince Oberyn. It seemed somewhat fitting for him to hear the words from her lips; and she saw a flick of… something pass through his eyes. It might have been regret, she thought. She surely knew how that felt like.

Then again, it might not have.

"I hoped it would take longer," it was all he said, his face perfectly even.

Lyanna slapped him.

He raised his eyebrow at that. "I hope that made you feel better," he said, and then paused. "What happens now?"

She looked away from him. "Things change."

Lyanna held her son in her arms on the day he was crowned King of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm by the High Septon himself; and then they went back to the Keep to watch her husband's body burn. He had left nothing to say what he wished to be done with his body, and there was nothing special Lyanna could do, short of having the body brought to Summerhall and be given at the flames there.

The court would never stand for it, though; all it had to be done in King's Landing. _Like Aegon and Rhaenys and Elia. _Lyanna could not bring herself to care. A body was a body, empty and lifeless, no matter who'd lived in it. _Once I'm dead they can throw me to the dogs for all I care._

Rhaegar was clad in his House's colors when he burned, the blacks even darker against his pale skin, his eyes closed forever. He did not look as though he were sleeping, not to Lyanna, who had seen him toss and turn in his bed enough to know that Rhaegar was never still while he slept; but rather he looked like some knight in stories, like the brave Prince he had been when they had met.

He looked like a hero from the songs, Lyanna thought. _And heroes always die young, don't they?_

Viserys sobbed quietly next to her as the smoke raised, pinching the skin of his face with one hand to stop crying. "Father used to say that dragon never cry," he informed her, solemnly, when they made their way back to his rooms.

"I thought the same when I was your age," Lyanna found herself saying, and continued quickly as Viserys made to speak. "My father was no dragon, of course," she told him. "But he was a wolf."

The boy's eyes where nothing like Rhaegar but for the similar shade, but Lyanna found herself holding his gaze all the same. "Wolves aren't as big as dragons, but they are every bit as fierce. Even more, because they are smaller."

"And what happened?" the boy asked, and she smiled.

"I met your brother once, and he sang a song so beautiful it made me cry. And _my_ brother made fun of me for that, so I poured wine on his head."

Viserys laughed at that, a small chuckle at first; and it wasn't soon before it turned into tears. "Don't worry," Lyanna told him, once he was done. "Sometimes crying make us feel better."

"Dany cries all the time," he looked serious again – too serious, Lyanna decided, as Ned had done when he had been a boy.

"My son does the same," she said, and smiled at him. "All babies do."

Viserys made to ask something else then, but she interrupted. _All their talking of children might make him ask about Elia's_. She had no idea how to even start explaining _that_ to a boy of eight.

"Would you like to meet _my_ brother?" Lyanna asked instead, and he frowned at her.

"The one you threw wine at?"

"I have two," she explained, and the words didn't hurt as much as it once had. _This could not be going better_. "That one is named Ben, he lives here in King's Landing. The other one lives in the North, in a castle bigger than the whole Red Keep."

_I used to have three brothers_, Lyanna thought, but it did not sting as much as it once had. Perhaps it was Rhaegar's death that had dulled the pain. _Aren't you proud of me, brother? The dragons took our family, and now the dragons are all dead._

Oberyn approached her once again a fortnight later, two days after Viserys's departure.

"What in the seven hells _have you done_, woman?" he asked, and would have looked furious had it not been for the gleam in his eyes. When he wasn't talking, he looked almost… amused.

"That would be _Your Grace_," Lyanna told him. "Please, don't let the Kingsguard hear you."

Oberyn laughed. "Ashara's brother and uncle Lewyn, you mean? I can imagine they would be most displeased." He paused. "Which one did you send with Viserys? I have not seen Ser Barristan in a while."

"Ser Barristan is with Daenerys at Dragonstone," she said. "Ser Jaime is a honored guest of my brother Ned at Winterfell."

He made such a good show of incredulity that Lyanna would certainly have believed him, had it been from anyone else. "Jaime Lannister killed the king," he spoke slowly. "And you've given him the heir to the throne. To him, and your brother the traitor."

"And if I'd given him to your brother, he would have married Princess Arianne and called himself king by the time he was old enough to be a knight."

"I don't know," Oberyn gave a shrug. "Doran has never been what you'd call rash, but this is slow even for him."

"It wouldn't have worked," Lyanna said. "Not after so many years."

He nodded. "I like my plan better."

_Do you, truly? _Lyanna thought. She wondered how long it would have taken for Dorne to rebel had she not approached him asking for help, and with an opportunity that wasn't quite a crown, but close enough to be almost as satisfying. _And revenge_.

They shared a cup in the solar that had been Aerys's, and Rhaegar's after him, and was now nothing more than a barren room. The wine was red and dark, a vintage the Dornishman swore was excellent but seemed to Lyanna excessively sour, and so strong she could not manage more than a few sips in fear to upset her stomach. Oberyn shrugged and offered to finish off Lyanna's as well, and that was when it dawned to her, _I don't think he hates me anymore_. That was good, wasn't it?

"I think you might be right," he said, absent-mindedly, and that was when she realized she'd spoken the words out loud. "Perhaps I never really did. Sometimes it is just –" he stopped, more out of words than truly dizzy, and she nodded.

"Easier?"

"Easier," he agreed. "I quite like you, truth be told. Had things gone differently…" he shook his head, slowly; and Lyanna tried not to think of the past.

_If only_.

Jon Arryn wrote her back three weeks after Rhaegar's death, and arrived in King's Landing not quite a month later. "He was a very good friend to my father," Lyanna told Lord Mace, carefully. "I realize I am doing you a disservice, my lord, but I would rather have a man I know well as Hand of the King, at least while His Grace is still so young."

Lord Mace seemed inclined to take offense, until Lyanna mentioned she would be honored to have him on the Small Council as Master of Laws, Oberyn Martell having gone back to Sunspear; and he frowned. "Why is that?" Lord Tyrell asked.

_To visit his sister's grave_, she could have said.

_To gloat_, perhaps_. To explain himself_.

_To wait out the year_, of course.

"To visit with his brother" she answered, and Lord Tyrell nodded, slowly. No doubt he imagined the visit to be a short one, and quite relished the prospect of seeing the Prince's face when he returned to King's Landing to find his seat occupied by a Tyrell. There was no love lost between Highgarden and Dorne most of the times; and between these two the rivalry seemed to increase tenfold.

Lord Arryn settled in both the city and the Hand's new quarters easily enough, and it was one month after his appointment as Hand of the King that Lyanna found herself all but restricted to her rooms, her time close.

Her second time giving birth was so much harder than the first one had been; no matter that she had been all but alone in a secluded tower then, and was in the Red Keep assisted by a Grand Maester now. It dragged long into the night, and there was blood, so much of it, and pain. _Make it stop_, she said, of perhaps she simply thought it. _Make it stop_.

At some point Lyanna heard one of the midwives whisper, in hushed tones, _she must have left the will to live with the, poor thing_; and she would have laughed at that had it all not been so confusing. Still, one thought made it through. _Rhaegar's dead_, she remembered, shocked that she might have forgotten. _He's dead and if I die too, what will happen?_

Somewhere some capricious god must be laughing, Lyanna thought; and then nothing more.

She did not die.

Her second child was born some three months after Rhaegar's death - not a daughter, as she'd led him believe sweeten his last moments, least of all two; it was a boy with silvery-gold hairs and, once his eyes had lost the blue shade of the newborns, she could see that they were a deep lilac.

Lyanna's smiles were bitter these first few days, her doubts and worries echoing again and again in her mind. _I did not want some part of him to stay after he was gone_, she'd said, and meant it. A living, breathing reminder of Rhaegar, a constant memory of all that he'd done to her and she to him…  
Lyanna had almost grown accustomed to the idea, she _thought_ she had; but now it were Rhaegar's eyes looking at her, all of the Targaryens and nothing of the Starks in him. _Sometimes life is twisted this way_.

She named him Brandon then, figuring that he looked Valyrian enough he did not need a Targaryen name as a reminder; after the brother she'd loved the most and lost too soon, as good of a man as Rhaegar had even been.

_And just as self-centered_, Lyanna told herself; but it was a kind thought, the way the heart remembers all the small vices of a loved one with fondness once the wound has started to heal.

He was sickly at first, her Brandon; but the maesters swore it was only the stress of the birth, that he would grow healthy and strong and Lyanna so wished for it to be true; but, in these first few days, she was sure he would die. It would be fitting of the gods, to take away the child she had not wanted just when she'd come to love him; and Lyanna spent her nights awake listening to Brandon's ragged little breaths, thinking of how own brother must have pleaded for air as he died.

She woke up in cold sweats whenever she managed to sleep, and always made her way to where little Brandon was sleeping, as quickly as she could. The rhythm of his small chest rising and falling was enough to calm her, making her whisper words of thanks to her father's god, who had never listened. Brandon always looked beautiful when he slept, and perfect; and the mere sight of him filled Lyanna with shame. _I would have killed you_, my child, she thought at him. _As I have done you father_.

But the gods, for once, were good; and Brandon did not die.

The days turned into weeks and the weeks in months; and it was winter again all of a sudden, the autumn only lasting a few short months. It was a mild one by all accounts, or so they said– to Lyanna, who had never seen a real winter in the South, it seemed as if it was no winter at all – and she wrote to Ned once again asking him to come to King's Landing, and yet once again being all but ignored.

He talked her of snows and winter and crops as if she did not know what the words meant, of duties and Lady Catelyn's first winter in the North and how he could not leave her, no matter that Lyanna had invited her as well – after having to make conversation with Lysa Arryn almost every day, she positively missed Catelyn.

_As you wish, brother_, she wrote her back, feeling an echo of their playful banters when they had all been children. _It is a shame to know you'll miss my wedding_.

It was worth it, Lyanna supposed, to give away the news like that; if only to imagine Ned's reaction.

She had planned on waiting longer at first, with the security that comes with having a plan well–thought, – after all, what was the sense in planning ahead if she could not follow her own times? – but as Brandon's first nameday had come and passed, the Council had started to make suggestions.

First it had been Lord Jon, as kind as ever, and Gran Maester Pycelle after that. When Lord Tarly had started in as well she had made a show of looking as irritated as she would have felt once upon a time – back when she had been still a girl, and did not make the rules.

"_Must_ you?" she had asked Jon, and he had nodded somberly.

"I am afraid so, Your Grace," he had said. "There will be – murmurs, soon, if you don't. A woman as young as yourself…"

_Should have a husband to watch over her?_ Lyanna had not dared to ask him to finish his thought, only telling Lord Arryn to let her know the names of whomever he thought would be more suitable.

He had looked stunned enough that she'd had to hold a laugh.

Lyanna would have hated the mere thought only a few years earlier, when marrying would mean leaving her home and family, and _freedom_, for a man who would never be able to give her what she needed; but she was queen now, and learned that she quite welcomed the weight of responsibilities if it meant that she could make her decision for herself.

That, and no man would ever take her away from what was left of her family, not ever again.

She resorted to writing Oberyn when she could no longer stall things by laughing at the names Lord Jon suggested; and he arrived in King's Landing to ask for her hand in marriage with a flowery speech she suspected he might have rehashed, to better make an impression on Lord Tyrell. He completed it all with one of those hard, predatory smiles of his, and Lyanna decided it was good thing they were allies now – and even a better one that they were no longer enemies.

They were married in a ceremony that was every bit as ostentatious as her first one to Rhaegar had been private. At the time Lyanna had not minded; and she did not this time either. _Different shows require different performances,_ or some such thing; and it was, after all, nothing more than a pretty mummer's farce, as usual, but this time, _she_ was the one pulling the strings.

"We do make quite a stunning pair," Oberyn told her that morning in the Gran Sept, his voice dry as sand; and Lyanna smiled and shook her head.

_ If only._

She was wearing a cloak in red and black that day, and Oberyn's lips twitched in an ironic smile when it came the moment to take it off and swap with his own, a perfect mirror of what Rhaegar had done with his sister in that exact same spot, years ago.

Afterwards, she proposed a toast with that sour wine he seemed to enjoy so much, pitching his voice low so that no one else could hear. "They're all dead," she said, and for the first time it felt like a release. "And yet here were are."

_Let the ghosts sleep_.

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**More notes**: because I know you care.

This is not the story I set to write. Originated at the kinkmeme, this fic was going to be set some five years after the Rebellion, dealing with a kickass Queen Regent Lyanna, rebel krakens and shady lions, female empowerment in a misogynistic world, and a minor mental breakdown caused by regret for Rhaegar's death. It would probably have been a much better story, only it made me feel depressed while writing, and I'm so much of a softie that couldn't take it.  
Oh, well. There goes my attempt at being edgy.

This fic was partly inspired by Leopardi's _To Silvia_, especially the first two stanzas; and owes a huge lot to Sera dy Relandrant stuff, because her characterization is a thing of beauty and the writing gorgeous, and I've been fangirling after her stuff since _forever_.

In case it still wasn't clear: it was Lyanna who killed Rhaegar. BTW, I so hope I didn't screw up the characterization too much - especially part two – I angstied over that chapter for days, and it only kept growing. Thank you all for reading, please consider leaving a feedback - this story has gotten a huge number of hits and quite a few follows and favs, but barely any reviews.

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**ETA**: I've been asked about a possible sequel - there's one in the works, but it will be a few months. If you want, just add this story to your alerts, I'll add a chapter when the sequel will be up.

**ETA #2**: You might have noticed that there are only two chapters now, but longer. The wordcount is just the same, the editing was done for formatting reasons (aka, the site's acting out and I wanted to have all the stuff in the same story file just in case).


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